


Stigmatophilia

by FlirtyFroggy



Series: This Old House [1]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: AU, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Frottage, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Tattoos, boys being rubbish with feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-31 00:47:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3958159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlirtyFroggy/pseuds/FlirtyFroggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Dan hung up and spent a good two minutes staring into space before snapping out of it. You’re just excited at the prospect of some things getting fixed around here, he told himself. You definitely do not have a crush on a voice on the phone. You are not that pathetic. Not yet.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Dan is a tattoo artist whose house is falling down around him. Fernando is his new landlord.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mjp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjp/gifts).



> Title may change as I feel like this one is too serious for the tone of the fic and it suggests that it's all about tattoos when really it's all about Fernando and Daniel flailing around about how much they fancy each other. I'm just really rubbish at titles.
> 
> This was supposed to be a quick oneshot to give me a break from my Xabi/Stevie fic but it's kinda getting away from me a bit so I'm breaking it up into chapters. Based on my track record, I make no promises as to how quickly chapters will go up or how long this damn thing will be when it's finished.
> 
> No porn in this chapter, sorry. That comes later.
> 
> Written at the request of [mjp](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mjp/pseuds/mjp). I'm sorry lovely, you were probably wanting something more meaningful and less ridiculous but, well, this is what happened. I guess my brain needed a break from angst and woe.

“Hello, is that Daniel?” The voice on the phone was warm and rich, with an accent Dan couldn’t place, but which definitely wasn’t English. The back of his neck prickled, and he hoped to god this wasn’t just someone trying to get him to switch energy companies.

“It is,” he said cautiously.

“Hi, this is Fernando Torres.” There was an awkward pause as Dan tried to work out why that name rang a bell. “I’m your new landlord?” the voice continued.

“Oh. Right. Yes.” Dan wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it hadn’t been that. He hadn’t paid much attention to the letter he had received from the management company informing him that his landlord had passed away and left the property to his nephew. In his experience, one landlord was much the same as another; all varying shades of incompetent and crazy.

“Anyway, the management company have given me a list of ‘non-urgent’ work that needs doing at the house and it’s, well,” there was another pause and the sound of rustling paper. “It’s quite long.” You don’t say, Dan thought. “I was wondering if I could come round and have a look, see what actually needs doing. I know I’m supposed to give you twenty four hours’ notice, but if it’s alright I have some time tomorrow. Otherwise it will be next week.” Dan glanced around the tiny kitchen. He hadn’t been home much in the past few days so the place wasn’t too much of a disaster. He could totally get this cleaned up by tomorrow.

“Sure, tomorrow’s fine.”

“Great. Around two?” He sounded so genuinely concerned about coming round to look at Dan’s crappy boiler — please god let him look at the boiler — that Dan couldn’t help but smile.

“Two’s good. See you then.”

“Bye.” Dan hung up and spent a good two minutes staring into space before snapping out of it. You’re just excited at the prospect of some things getting fixed around here, he told himself. You definitely do not have a crush on a voice on the phone. You are not that pathetic. Not yet.

~~

He did not have a crush on a voice on the phone. He had a crush on the actual, real-life frickin Adonis currently wandering around his house prodding the light switches and frowning at the dishwasher. “It’s really never worked?”

“Not since I moved in, and that was two years ago,” Dan said, looking away quickly before Fernando caught him staring. 

“Hmm,” Fernando said, scribbling something on his rapidly growing to-do list. He rifled through the papers the management company had given him. “I think that’s everything down here,” he said in that, damn, in that accent that Dan was now pretty sure was Spanish. He drifted towards the stairs, still engrossed in his list, and Dan trailed after him. He gave Dan the same quick, polite smile he had been giving him since he arrived. It made something in the pit of Dan’s stomach flutter, and he longed to see what that face looked like graced by a real smile, one that reached his eyes. But his mind was a blank, and he could barely think of anything to say at all, let alone something witty or funny that might make this man smile or, god help him, laugh. He followed Fernando up the stairs and tried, he really did try, not to notice that Fernando’s arse was currently at eye-level. “It says the upstairs hallway needs painting and…” Fernando trailed off as he reached the top of the stairs. Dan studied his feet sheepishly as he joined him. “Oh.”

There was a long silence as Fernando stared at the tangle of colour and shape covering the wall from floor to ceiling. “It started off as just this,” Dan said when he couldn’t stand it any more, indicating a purple-grey shape opposite the window where, around seven or so in the evening, the shadow of the tree outside would fall. “It’s the light up here in the evening, you see. I sort of couldn’t help myself. And your uncle didn’t mind, so I just, well, kept going.” He ran his hand up to where one of the branches merged with the wing of a bird. He glanced over at Fernando, whose face was still totally unreadable. “I can get rid of it if you want,” he said, his heart heavy. “I tried to keep the colours muted so it could be painted over.” Fernando raised an eyebrow at that and brushed his hand against a crimson streak of setting sun. “I said I tried, I didn’t say I succeeded,” Dan said, trying to keep the defensiveness out of his voice.

“It’s beautiful,” Fernando said softly, moving his hand down to rest on a face that could be a man or a woman or something not even human, Dan wasn’t entirely sure.

“You really think so?” Dan said, hoping that the warm glow spreading through him wasn’t showing in his face, though he rather thought it might be.

“I do.” He turned to Dan and smiled, and there it was; the real, full smile that Dan had wanted to see. His eyes lit up and crinkled at the corners and, god, he had dimples. He actually had dimples. The fluttering in Dan’s stomach moved into his chest. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I— thank you,” Dan said, not knowing what else to say. Fernando stepped closer to the wall, peering at the details.

“Is this what you do then? Are you an artist?”

“Sort of. Tattoo artist.” Fernando’s eyes lit up again.

“Really? And is this the sort of thing you do?” Dan nodded. “Maybe you should do my next one, I’ve been thinking about getting another.” 

Dan choked on air for a second, his mind immediately spinning out a thousand fantasies about having Fernando in his chair, about inking his skin, about— he dragged his thoughts back into the present where Fernando was waiting for his response, looking increasingly uncomfortable. “Sure,” he squeaked. He cleared his throat, feeling his face flush. “Sure,” he tried again, sounding less embarrassing this time. “I’m sure we can give you the landlord’s discount,” he laughed awkwardly.

“That sounds great,” Fernando said, stepping closer. Dan was suddenly very aware of just how narrow the hallway was. He could reach out now and push back the strand of blond hair that had fallen into Fernando’s face, tuck it behind his ear. His hand twitched at his side. “Right then,” Fernando said, a touch too loudly. “I think we can safely say the hallway doesn’t need repainting.” He lowered his head and consulted his list again; Dan thought he could make out a pink tinge to his cheeks. “The boiler.”

“In there,” Dan said, indicating the door behind him. Fernando had to step past him to reach it, brushing against his arm as he did so. He smelled amazing, and Dan briefly closed his eyes and took a deep breath, told himself to get a grip. When he turned round, Fernando had his hand on the cupboard handle. Dan knew what was coming. Sure enough, Fernando swung the door open and said something Dan was ninety percent sure was Spanish and one hundred percent sure was swearing. Dan moved to his side. “The last guy who serviced it said it came off the ark.”

Fernando nodded. “I think he might be right. I’ve never actually seen one of these in real life, only in pictures.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. I can’t believe my uncle never replaced this thing.”

“He said it was too expensive, and that there’s nothing wrong with this one.”

Fernando wrinkled his nose. “That’s technically true, I suppose,” he said, scanning the service history. “It works and it’s perfectly safe. But, I mean,” he waved his hand at the multitude of pipes and tanks and god knew what else was filling the cupboard. Dan didn’t even know what half the stuff did. “This must cost you a fortune to run.”

“You should see my gas bill,” Dan said, feeling the first strains of that tense, nauseous feeling he got whenever he thought about it.

“We’ll move ‘new boiler’ to the top of the list, shall we?” Fernando said with a sympathetic smile. Dan could have hugged him. “I can get you a combi cheap through work. It won’t be brand new but it will be newer than this. My grandmother is newer than this,” he muttered. He glared at the boiler, and Dan thought it looked almost as good on him as the smile did. Clearly, he needed help. “Will this weekend be alright for you?” It took a second for Fernando’s words to register.

“This weekend? I can get rid of it this weekend?” Fernando nodded. “You are my new favourite person,” Dan said fervently. Fernando’s face broke into another of those smiles, and Dan knew he was done for.

~~

“This is bad, Pepe,” Fernando said as he paced up and down his living room.

“Sounds pretty good to me,” Pepe said with a grin. He stretched and put his feet up on the coffee table. “I don’t see what the problem is.” Fernando knocked his feet off the table with a frown.

“I eat off there, keep your fucking feet off it. Were you raised in a barn?” Pepe simply smiled at him and took a drink of his beer. Fernando resumed his pacing. “The problem, you total moron, is that I’m his landlord. Doesn’t that put me in a position of, I don’t know, authority or power or something over him?”

Pepe burst out laughing. “Maybe if this was the fourteenth century. But in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s not. He’s not some serf who has to submit to his lord’s every wish. He has legal rights, which means he doesn’t have to worry about you kicking him out if he doesn’t sleep with you. Which means that if he does sleep with you, it’s because he wants to and not because he has to.” He took another swig of his beer. “And you call me a moron.” 

Fernando collapsed into the chair across from him with a sigh and picked up his own beer. “You really think so?”

“That you’re a moron? Yeah.” Fernando gave him the finger. “You’re not taking advantage of anyone, Fer,” he continued more kindly. “It’s more like a business arrangement. He gives you money in exchange for living in your house. You’re equals. There’s no abuse of power if you fuck him into the mattress. Unless he’s into that, I guess.” 

“It’s so unfair,” Fernando said, deciding to ignore Pepe’s last comments. If he let his mind wander down that path he might never get it back. “He’s got these eyes and these cheekbones and all these goddamn freckles. I hate mine but you should see them on him. No-one should be allowed to look like that.”

“You know who you sound like?”

“Who?” 

“My thirteen year old niece. She’s in love with that kid from that boyband, you know? The one with the hair? You sound like her.” Fernando glared at him. “Seriously, his eyes and his cheekbones and his freckles? That’s what you’re going into spasms about? If that’s what you want, buy a mirror and have a wank. Problem solved.”

“Fuck off.”

“You’re wounding me with these witty rejoinders.”

“I had plans, you know. I had plans this weekend. Plans that I have now rearranged so I can go and install the boiler of some Danish guy I just met. A boiler I have to pay for, by the way. I could have fitted it next week or next month, but no. I took one look at his happy little face when I said I’d get a new boiler and was like ‘I can fit it this weekend if you want’. Like an idiot. He turns me into an idiot. He’s been in my life five minutes and he’s already messing it up.”

“Ah. Now we come to the real problem.”

“What?”

“You’re not upset that you like your tenant and you would be ‘taking advantage’ by making a move. You’re upset that you like anyone at all.”

“No I’m not.”

“You have to let someone in eventually, you know. Maybe Freckles is the one to help you with your intimacy issues.”

“I do not have intimacy issues.”

“Really? How long was your last relationship? Or the one before that? And the one before that?”

“That’s not intimacy issues, that’s because I have terrible taste in men.”

Pepe looked thoughtful. It was a rare expression to see on his face so it took Fernando a few seconds to recognise it. “Can’t argue with that,” he said after a while. “Is this one terrible too?”

“I don’t know. I hardly know him,” Fernando sulked.

“There must be something other than cheekbones and eyes that have got you in a tizz.”

“I’m not in a tizz,” Fernando said automatically. He closed his eyes and thought about the hour he had spent in Dan’s house. “He seems sweet and shy. Kinda reserved, you know?” Pepe snorted. “What?”

“I never took you for a narcisist, but it’s really sounding more and more like you just want to fuck yourself.”

“Do you want to help me or do you just want to make fun of me?”

“I can do both. They’re not mutually exclusive.” Fernando seriously considered kicking him out of the house, but then he’d just be left there with his own thoughts going round and round his head and he’d had enough of that.

“On the wall upstairs he’d painted this, this thing. I don’t really know how to describe it. All over the wall, floor to ceiling. Like a load of separate pictures but all interconnected, you know, like,” he waved his hands helplessly in the air. “I know fuck all about art but it was the most stunning thing I’d ever seen. He said he’s a tattoo artist and I made some comment about him doing my next tattoo, and I looked at the stuff on the wall and just the thought of him putting _that_ on my skin, Christ. I could have jumped him right there.” He stopped for breath and to take another drink of beer. “He’s got this habit, like this nervous habit, of tugging at his sleeves, pulling them up a little. You should see his arms.”

“Inked up, huh?” Pepe said sympathetically.

“You have no idea. It was like he was taunting me with these flashes of his wrists and little bits of his forearms, and I just want to know how far up it goes, where it ends, if it ends. I bet he’s covered in it. And I don’t know if he’s even interested in me or if I should do anything about it if he is. I’m still not convinced it’s not inappropriate and it could get really awkward if it all goes wrong, and I have to go round there on Saturday and try to keep my hands off him. But he’s got this shy little smile and these artist’s hands that quite frankly would look amazing wrapped around my cock, and he blushes like a fucking virgin.” He drained the rest of his beer. Pepe looked slightly shell-shocked.

“Well,” he said at last. “At least you don’t sound like my thirteen year old niece anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Fernando comes back to replace the boiler; Dan fails at small talk.


	2. Chapter 2

Fernando was in his house again and Dan was trying very hard not to jangle around and be weird, but he didn’t think he was succeeding. It had been a very trying morning so far. 

First of all, Fernando had turned up alone, new boiler in tow. Dan had assumed that he would hire someone to install it, and he would maybe pop round for a while to make sure everything was okay. But it seemed Fernando would be doing the installing, which made sense when he thought back over their conversation, but he hadn’t exactly been paying full attention to the words coming out of Fernando’s mouth, being rather more preoccupied with the mouth itself. Apparently it would ‘take all day, maybe tomorrow too’. So now he had Fernando in his house for, potentially, the entire weekend. On the one hand, this was fantastic; who wouldn’t want a gorgeous man hanging around the house, ridding you of the very thing you hated the most? On the other hand, this could be a disaster; the potential for making a massive fool of himself was enormous.

Second of all, Fernando had turned up early, when Dan was just getting out of bed. Expecting a stranger he didn’t really care about, he had staggered blearily downstairs in his ratty old sweatpants and a hole-filled t-shirt with ‘motherfunker’ printed on it in faded type, hair on end and pillow imprint all over his cheek. He had physically recoiled when he opened the door to find Fernando standing on the other side of it, and had stared for a full thirty seconds in response to Fernando’s cheerful ‘good morning’ before he pulled himself together enough to mutter ‘hello’ and usher him inside, tugging up his sweatpants and trying to straighten his hair.

Third of all, Fernando had turned up wearing these jeans. There was nothing particularly special about the jeans, except they suited Fernando down to the ground, went perfectly with the battered boots that were doing things to Dan that a mere pair of boots really shouldn’t do, and hugged Fernando’s arse in a way that hinted at the glories beneath while simultaneously revealing nothing. The jeans were accompanied by a belt, a proper workman’s belt with pockets and wrenches and screwdrivers and things. If you held a gun to Dan’s head he couldn’t have told you why this belt was so appealing, only that there was something about the way it hung just-so from Fernando’s hips. The jeans and belt were topped off by what appeared to be an ordinary black t-shirt. It wasn’t tight exactly, but it _clung_. No-one could have accused him of deliberately showing off his body, but showing off his body was certainly a side-effect.

Fourth of all, Fernando had turned up covered in tattoos. Dan had known he had them after his comment about getting another, but seeing them up and down those arms was a different matter. If there could be said to be a problem with them, it was that there weren’t enough of them. All that bare skin was just begging for some colour, and Dan would be more than happy to provide it for him.

And so, he was rattling around his living room, pacing up and down, sitting on the couch and immediately getting back up again, flicking the TV on and off and generally being antsy. What he needed was an excuse to either go and talk to him or get out of the house, because this was driving him crazy. As he paced past the kitchen door his gaze fell on the kettle. Of course. If he had learned one thing living in England it was that all workmen, including the foreign ones, were fueled entirely by hot beverages. He jogged to the bottom of the stairs. “Would you like a drink?” he called. There was a thud and a clank and some swearing.

“Coffee, thanks. Milk, no sugar.” The reply sounded muffled.

“You okay?”

“Just dropped something. I’m fine.”

“Okay. Coffee will be up in two minutes.” The kettle seemed to take forever to boil. He threw coffee and milk into two mugs and tapped his fingers against the worktop as he stared out at the little patch of grass that reminded him daily that ‘low maintenance garden’ did not mean ‘no maintenance garden’. An interminable amount of time later he was heading up the stairs trying not to slop coffee all over the carpet. He nearly dropped the mugs when he reached the top. Fernando was kneeling on the floor, his t-shirt ridden slightly up his back. The patch of skin revealed at the bottom had no tattoos but plenty of freckles. He had the back of one hand pressed to his mouth and was sucking on one of the knuckles. As Dan watched, he took his hand away from his mouth, frowned at it, and stuck it back again. He glanced over his shoulder when he heard Dan’s footsteps, dropped his hand and flashed a quick smile. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Dan hurried forward, put the mugs down on the floor and knelt beside Fernando.

“Fine. I, uh, dropped a piece of pipe, tried to catch it, scraped my hand on the wall in there.” He gestured to the cupboard, where the brickwork of the walls wasn’t covered by plaster. “Stupid, really,” he muttered, looking away. 

“Are you hurt? Let me see.”

“I just took a bit of skin off my knuckle. It stings a bit, that’s all.” Fernando drew his hand out from behind his back and held it out. “See. Fine.”

“It’s bleeding quite a lot.”

“Yeah. They do that.”

“I’ll find you a plaster or something,” Dan said, standing up.

“You know how often I scrape my knuckles and trap my fingers? It’s fine.” Fernando laughed softly and it took tremendous willpower on Dan’s part not to kneel back down and kiss him until he was breathless. Fernando had given him no indication that he was even interested, and Dan wasn’t the most socially competent of people but he was pretty sure sexually assaulting your landlord was frowned upon.

“You’re bleeding everywhere,” he said as he forced himself to walk to the bathroom and rummage around in the medicine cabinet.

“Well, yes. I suppose I am,” Fernando said, sounding distracted. It took the time needed to find the plasters and walk back out to the hall for Dan to decide that putting them on for him would be weird. He handed the box to him instead. “Thanks.” Fernando looked up at him with a smile and it was at that precise moment that Dan realised Fernando’s head was approximately level with his crotch. Fuck. He hurried back to where he’d left his coffee and sipped at it while he leaned against the wall and watched Fernando stick plasters to his hand. “Thanks,” Fernando said again when he finished, and reached for his coffee.

“No problem. It’s only instant, by the way,” he said indicating the coffee. “But it’s not too terrible.” The way Fernando wrinkled his nose suggested otherwise. Dan laughed. “Oh, not good enough for the Spaniard? I see. You are Spanish, right?” 

“What gave it away? Was it the name, the accent or the fact that I speak Spanish?”

“Very funny. You could have been Mexican or something. You could be Italian or Portuguese for all I know.”

Fernando dimpled at him from behind his mug. “You can’t tell the difference?”

“Oh, and you can tell if I’m Swedish or Danish or Norwegian or Finnish?”

“You’re Danish,” Fernando said promptly. Dan looked at him suspiciously.

“Marjorie from the management company told you that, didn’t she?”

“Maybe,” Fernando said, his eyes twinkling. He put his coffee down and turned his attention back to the pipes in the cupboard. It didn’t seem to be a dismissal however, so Dan decided to stick around. It was curiously soothing, watching Fernando’s efficient, methodical movements. The view when he leaned forward to look more closely at something didn’t hurt either.

“I’m sorry about your uncle,” he said after a few minutes, belatedly dredging some manners up from the depths of his brain.

“Hm? Oh. Thanks,” Fernando said, frowning as he struggled with a wrench. “I didn’t really know him.” The connector he had been wrestling with finally gave way and he fell back with a little grunt before throwing it onto the growing pile of debris beside him. “He was married to my mum’s sister and when they got divorced he came back to England and we didn’t have any contact with him after that. I’m not sure why he left this place to me. I guess maybe he didn’t have any other family. My brother got his other house, the one he lived in.”

“That’s a shame,” Dan mused. “Not that he left the other house to your brother. That’s not a shame. It’s good, that you got this house. I mean, not good, just…” he trailed off when he saw Fernando’s lips twitching. “I just meant, it’s sad that he didn’t have anyone to leave his stuff to except a couple of ex-nephews he hadn’t seen for years.”

“I suppose it is,” Fernando said. He picked up his coffee again and took a sip. “You know, this actually isn’t that bad.”

“Told you.” 

Fernando laughed. “You did, you did. I should never have doubted you. I will trust your judgment in all coffee-related matters from now on.” He returned to his pipework, which seemed never ending. Dan watched his arms as he worked; when he leaned forward his t-shirt pulled tight and Dan could see the muscles working in his back and shoulders. He wanted very much to find out what they looked like when they weren’t covered in fabric.

“Are you CORGI registered then?” Well done Agger. Gas fitting regulations, that’ll do it. He’s bound to fall for you now. A+ small talk there. Dan wanted to die right on the spot, but he’d probably find a way to embarrass himself doing that too. 

“It’s not called CORGI any more, but yes,” Fernando said calmly, as though Dan hadn’t just said something completely inane. “I’m fully qualified and certified and registered and everything. Want to see my credentials?” That twinkle in his eye was back, as was the urge to press him into the carpet. Dan stared down at his empty mug.

“No, that’s fine,” he mumbled. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. I wasn’t expecting you to be doing all this yourself.”

“Well, it is my job. Or did you think my job was just ‘landlord’?”

“I suppose I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Well, I had my own business back in Spain. Employees and everything. Then the economy tanked and— sorry, you didn’t ask for my life story.” 

“No, it’s fine,” Dan blurted. “I want to know. About you.” Fernando smiled at him warmly and Dan had to look away.

“Anyway, the short version is: I went out of business, came over here to work for a friend of mine temporarily and ended up staying. What about you? Why did you leave Denmark?”

“Art college. It… let’s say it didn’t go well. I had a part time job at a tattoo studio, they took me on full time when I left college, trained me up properly. I had no reason to go back to Denmark. So here I am.” 

“It seems to have worked out okay for you,” Fernando said, nodding at the painted wall and then at Dan’s arm. 

“I suppose it has.” He bent down to collect Fernando’s empty coffee mug. “I should let you get on with things. I’m distracting you.”

“Yes you are,” Fernando murmured. Something in his voice made Dan glance up sharply. It was said softly, almost intimately; Dan half expected to find him leaning in for a kiss. But he was just sitting back on his heels, studying the mess inside the cupboard as though he hadn’t said anything at all. When he turned back to Dan his face was expressionless and he flashed that quick, polite smile again. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“No problem. I could bring some more up later. If you want.”

“I want.” There it was again. That thing in his voice. But there was nothing in his face, nothing it all. Deciding he was imagining things, Dan fled downstairs.

~~

At lunchtime Fernando hid in his van. If anybody had asked him he would have said it was just where he was eating his lunch. But the truth was he was hiding. He beat his head gently against the steering wheel, scaring the hell out of himself when he accidentally hit the horn. He prodded at the plasters he didn't really need on his hand and swore quietly to himself when he realised he was actually smiling at the damn things. Getting sentimental over an Elastoplast, it was ridiculous. He unwrapped his unappetising cheese sandwich and wondered what Dan was having for lunch. His phone buzzed at his side, Pepe’s name flashing at him accusingly. He ignored it. Pepe had been texting him all morning and every text had been a variation of the same thing: Have you fucked him yet? As if sex was automatic, the next logical step after finding out your tenant was unfeasibly attractive. Apparently Pepe had been with his wife so long he had forgotten that there were usually a few stages in between. Eventually the flashing and buzzing stopped, then his phone beeped twice in quick succession. With a long-suffering sigh he opened his messages.

_answer your phone you dick._

_r u unable to answer because u r balls deep in danish pastry?_

Fernando hit the call button. “Danish pastry?” he asked when Pepe answered. 

“Yeah, I regretted that one as soon I pressed ‘send’ to be honest.”

“I can never eat Danish pastry again, you realise that.”

“Ah-ha! So you’ve eaten Danish pastry today, have you?”

“No I have not. And please stop using ‘Danish pastry’ as a euphemism for sex.”

“Actually, I was using it as a euphemism for—”

“Pepe! I don’t want to know.”

“I take it things are not going well.”

“It depends what you mean by well, I suppose.”

“You haven’t jumped him yet?”

“No.”

“He hasn’t jumped you yet?”

“No. He’s made me lots of coffee. And we talked. It was nice.”

“Did you wear the t-shirt?”

“The one you blackmailed me into wearing? Yeah.”

“Sex is inevitable then.”

“Yeah, I think that’s the problem.”

“Jesus, not this again.”

“Look, it’s none of your business anyway so just leave me alone.”

“You called me, remember?”

“Yeah, well now I’m hanging up on you.”

“But—”

“Bye, Pepe.”

He shoved his phone back into its pocket on his belt and laid his head back against the seat. The clock on the dashboard said it was almost two o’clock. He should really get back inside. It’s not like this is work, a little voice whispered in the back of his head. This is your own personal time. You can take as long as you like. In fact, you don’t even have to go back in. You could just drive away. 

It was tempting. Go home, jerk off in the shower and then kick back and watch the football, untroubled by shy half-smiles or art-covered arms. But that would be a dickish thing to do. And he’d only have to come back tomorrow anyway. With a sigh, he got out of the van and headed back to the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: the boys give in to their feelings after resisiting for, like, a day and a half.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay, I've been absolutely swamped with work and personal stuff. I should have more time to write now (though Wimbledon starts tomorrow, so maybe not).

Dan was sure he had never been up so early in his life, except maybe as a kid, too excited to sleep on birthdays and Christmas. Yet here he was, perched on a bar stool in his kitchen, sipping his morning coffee, watching the last pink glow of the sunrise. The last time he’d seen a sunrise he’d been on his way home, too drunk and exhausted to appreciate it. His legs ached from his run the day before, when he had escaped the house after lunch for a quick jog around the block that had turned into something approaching a half-marathon. By the time he returned Fernando had packed up and gone, leaving a note on the table saying he would be back in the morning. Dan had run his finger lightly over the words, following the scrawled loop of a ‘g’ and the clear strokes of the ‘F’, and then gone to take a very long shower.

He was just starting his third cup of coffee and his second bowl of cereal when the doorbell rang. Even though he had been expecting it, waiting for it, he jumped at the shrill noise. He made a mental note to ask Fernando to add it to his list of things to replace and forced himself to walk calmly to the door and open it. Fernando looked, if anything, even more delicious than he had the day before. He smiled when Dan opened the door and Dan gripped the door-frame a little bit tighter.

“Hi,” Fernando said.

“Hi.” There was a slightly awkward pause. “Oh, sorry. Come in.” He stepped aside to let Fernando pass him, so close their shoulders brushed and Fernando’s fingers grazed Dan’s wrist. “It’s, um,” he waved his hand in the direction of the stairs. “Well, you know where it is.” He was blushing again, he could feel it.

“Yeah,” Fernando said. His gaze lingered on Dan’s face and, Dan was pretty sure, his mouth. His tongue flicked out to wet his lips. “Yeah,” he said again, laughing lightly, “I think I remember.” He headed up the stairs and Dan’s eyes followed him all the way up.

It was mid-morning when it happened. Dan made another coffee run upstairs and found Fernando struggling with something in The Cupboard. The muscles and tendons twisted and flexed in his arms; his back rippled. After a few seconds, Fernando sagged and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Fuck,” he muttered.

“Problems?” Dan said, stepping up next to him.

“I cannot get this _hijo de puta_ out of the wall. It’s like it doesn’t want to leave or something. I think it’s a load-bearing pipe.”

“Is that a thing?” Dan asked before realising that no, of course that’s not a thing. There is no such thing as a load-bearing pipe.

“No, I was joking, but apparently I’m not as hilarious as I thought.”

“Does it need to come out? It’s not connected to anything anymore. If it wants to stay that badly, I don’t mind.”

“It’s not really safe. See the jagged edge?”

Dan nodded. “Can I help? I take it we’re just using brute force here. Four arms are better than two.”

Fernando’s eyes flicked down to Dan’s arms and then back up to his face. “Yeah, that could work.” He turned away and dug deep in his tool box, producing what looked like a very long pair of pliers. He clamped the head onto the piece of pipe sticking out of the wall. “Okay, hold that end.” Dan took hold of the handle; in the narrow space Fernando had to hook his arm through Dan’s to do the same. His skin was hot and slightly damp, and their sides pressed together from shoulder to hip. Dan concentrated on where his hands were wrapped around the pliers, lest he be tempted to wrap them around other things. “Pull as hard as you can on three. One, two, three.” They heaved and pulled for several seconds before Dan felt something shift and that was the only warning they got before the pipe gave way. Dan instinctively reached out as he fell backwards, grabbing Fernando’s arm and twisting him round. They landed on the floor with a bump, Dan on his back with Fernando’s nose pressed against his cheek and his hair tickling his forehead. Something on Fernando’s belt was digging into Dan’s hip. Fernando pulled his head back. “Sorry, I. Sorry.” He sounded a little breathless. He was heavy, and so close. Dan could count his eyelashes, if he were of a mind to do something as creepy as count someone’s eyelashes. Fernando opened his mouth as if to say something else, but then closed it and lowered his head.

It was brief, it was light, it was chaste, but it was, very definitely, a kiss.

“Sorry,” Fernando said again when he pulled away. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have. Sorry.” He seemed sincere, but he also made absolutely no attempt to move off Dan.

“Um, I’m getting some mixed signals here.”

“Huh? Oh. Fuck, sorry.” Fernando moved like he was about to get up and Dan grabbed hold of his shoulders.

“Don’t.” He lifted one hand to brush Fernando’s cheekbone. He shifted slightly so his thigh slipped between Fernando’s and pressed upwards against his crotch. Fernando’s eyelids fluttered and his lips parted and that was definitely an expression Dan could stand to see more of. He pressed a little harder. His eyelids fluttered again and this time a gentle moan escaped his throat. He gazed down at Dan; his eyes dark, pupils wide. He muttered something under his breath in Spanish and then bent his head to kiss Dan again. There was nothing chaste about it this time, his tongue sweeping into Dan’s mouth, their lips hard against each other.

Dan’s fingers tangled in Fernando’s hair as he responded as best he could given that Fernando’s weight was pinning him to the ground and his tongue was in his mouth. He curled against him, trying to get some friction against his rapidly hardening cock. Fernando pulled back a little, just enough so he could reach down and take his tool belt off. Dan considered asking him to leave it on but thought perhaps it was a bit too soon to start asking for weird stuff.

Things were a little easier with the bulkiness of the belt out of the way, and they were free to grind against each other until they were both hard and panting. Dan’s hands fell to Fernando’s waist and then slid lower so they could cup that magnificent arse and pull Fernando even tighter against him. Fernando grunted and his mouth moved down over Dan’s jaw to his throat as his hand made its way to the fly of Dan’s jeans. He had just tugged the button open when the doorbell rang.

“Ignore it,” Dan said. Fernando didn’t argue, just pulled the zipper down and slipped his hand inside Dan’s jeans to rub him over his boxers. Dan groaned and pushed up against his hand. The doorbell rang again as he fumbled with Fernando’s jeans. Fernando’s hand stopped its movement and he looked questioningly at Dan. “Ignore it,” Dan gasped, slipping his hand under Fernando’s waistband. He wrapped his fingers around Fernando’s cock and watched as his eyes closed and his head dropped forward. Fernando’s hand slid inside his boxers. The doorbell rang and this time it didn’t stop.

“Are you sure—”

“Dan!” a voice yelled from outside, and Dan froze. Fuck. Nick. Fernando’s hand stopped again and Dan’s head fell back with a completely different kind of groan. “Dan you fucker, if you’re fucking ignoring me again so you can wank off over your fucking landlord again I’m going to burn your house down.” Fortunately all of this was said in Danish so Fernando didn’t understand a word of it, except perhaps the abundance of ‘fucks’, but Dan still wanted to sink into the ground. He closed his eyes.

“My friend Nick. I forgot he was coming over today, we’re supposed to go out this afternoon.” He finally dared to open his eyes and look at Fernando who was flushed and breathless and, fuck he was going to kill Nick. “Sorry.”

“No. No, that’s okay. I probably shouldn’t have…” Fernando scrambled to his feet and began fastening his jeans, his head down and his cheeks red. Dan levered himself up and headed downstairs, fumbling with his zip as he went.

“Dan! I know you’re home, answer the—” Nick stopped yelling when Dan wrenched the door open.

“For god’s sake, Nick, I have neighbours. Learn some patience and keep your voice down.”

“What were you doing?” Nick said, looking him up and down. “Were you— oh my god, I was just kidding about the wanking thing.” There was a thump from upstairs. “Is someone here? Wait, is it him?” Dan looked away and Nick burst out laughing. “Sorry man, did I interrupt at a crucial moment?”

“Yes you did, you prick,” Dan said, pulling his trainers on.

“Sorry,” Nick said with a grin. Dan walked to the bottom of the stairs, considered going up them, and then chickened out.

“Fernando?” he called. “I, er, I’m going out. I’ll see you later, yeah?” There was a pause.

“Okay. See you later.”

“Sorry for the cockblock, Fernando,” Nick shouted up the stairs, and Dan shoved him out of the door before he gave in to the urge to go to the kitchen and find something sharp to kill him with.

~~

Dan spent the entire afternoon not killing Nick as he helped him pick a birthday present for his mother. He was pretty sure he deserved some kind of award. By the time Nick had settled on a new handbag for her (“Do I look like I know about fucking handbags? Just pick one”) Dan had abandoned all hope of Fernando still being at the house when he got back, so it was a pleasant and slightly terrifying surprise to find Fernando’s van still parked outside. 

The front door opened just as Dan creaked open the garden gate and Fernando came out, tousled and tired-looking and carrying his over-sized toolbox as easily as if it were a bag of knitting. He stopped when he saw Dan. “Hi. You’re back.”

“Yeah. Hi.”

“I’m all done.” He lifted his toolbox as if to indicate his done-ness. Dan watched his muscles flex and bulge with the movement, his t-shirt pulling tight across his shoulder.

“Great. Thanks.”

“Sure.” Ask him to come back inside, idiot. Just ask him. Dan had never been great at knowing when people liked him, to Nick’s endless amusement, but even he couldn’t miss the way Fernando was looking at him. The fact that Fernando had pinned him to the ground and stuck his hand down his trousers a few hours earlier had also been a pretty big tip-off. If ever there was a time he could be quite sure of not being rejected, this was it. And still all he could do was look. He mentally cursed himself in every language he knew.

Eventually it was Fernando who pulled himself together before they both grew old and died and became one with the paving stones. “Let me put this in the van and then I can show you how the new system works, if you like?” It was possibly the weakest excuse Dan had ever heard for getting into someone’s house, but it was still better than anything he had come up with.

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.” Fernando gave him _that_ smile and Dan felt his heart-rate pick up. He didn’t even bother pretending he wasn’t watching him walk all the way down the path and all the way back up again. 

“So, what did you want me to do next?” Fernando asked as Dan pushed open the front door. Dan stumbled across the threshold. 

“I — what?”

“I meant to the house.” Out of the corner of his eye Dan saw Fernando duck his head. “What’s most urgent after the boiler?”

“Um, the dishwasher maybe? I’ve managed without one so far, I mean it’s only me in the house, but it would be nice to have it working. I hate washing up. It’s worse than vacuuming. The stuff’s just going to get dirty again anyway, it’s so futile.” He trailed off uncertainly towards the end, aware that he was rambling. Fortunately they had made it up the stairs to The Cupboard by then so he could stop talking.

Fernando opened The Cupboard. “Okay,” he said, moving into professional mode as though someone had flicked a switch. “It’s all pretty self-explanatory. Boiler. Thermostat. Press this to light the pilot light if it goes out, which it shouldn’t. Press the timer button to set the timer and the temperature button to change the, er—”

“Temperature?”

“Right. Yeah.” Fernando’s professional mode seemed to have failed him. He was staring at Dan again and Dan had to force himself not to shift under his gaze or look away. He was very aware of the fact that the door behind him was the door to his bedroom. “Sorry,” Fernando said, apparently just realising what he was doing. “Sorry.” Before he had chance to think about it or second-guess himself, Dan stepped forward and placed two fingers against Fernando’s lips.

“Stop,” he whispered. “Stop apologising. I don’t mind.”

Fernando smiled and huffed out a breath. It was hot against Dan’s skin. “Okay.” Dan lowered his hand and wrapped it around the back of Fernando’s neck, tugging him forward into a kiss. It was slower than their earlier kiss had been but no less heated, tongues brushing against each other, hands roaming everywhere. Fernando backed him up slowly until he was against the bedroom door. Dan pulled his head away to tell him that the catch on the door was faulty and wouldn’t take their weight, when Fernando pressed up against him, pushing him hard against the door. It swung open abruptly and they fell into the room with a mixture of Spanish and Danish curses, only managing to stay on their feet because Dan had been braced for it. They clung to each for a moment, laughing. 

“Sorry,” Dan murmured against Fernando’s smile. “Should have warned you about the door.”

“I’ll add it to the list,” Fernando said between kisses and giggles. “What about the wall. Is that solid?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” The next thing Dan knew, he had been slammed against the wall and Fernando’s mouth was working its way along his jaw while his hands toyed with the fastenings on Dan’s jeans. Dan leaned his head back and closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of Fernando’s teeth scraping over his pulse-point. His hands ran lightly over Fernando’s back. “Oi,” Fernando said with a gentle poke at Dan’s ribs. “I hope you don’t think I’m doing all the work here.” His hand rested over the bulge in Dan’s jeans, not pressing or moving or anything, the goddamn tease. Dan growled and opened his eyes, resting his hands on Fernando’s shoulders.

“What, you’re tired out after your day’s work?” Fernando pouted and nodded, trying and failing to keep a straight face. “And here I was thinking you were young and vigorous.”

“Hey, I’ve been doing hard physical labour all day,” Fernando said, finally starting to move his hand, albeit very slowly. “What have you been doing?”

“Shopping for handbags,” Dan said defiantly. Fernando laughed, and Dan couldn’t help himself. “God, you’re beautiful.” Fernando’s grin softened and he kissed Dan hard. 

“You sweet-talker,” he whispered, and tugged gently at his bottom lip with his teeth. Dan groaned and pushed him away. Fernando frowned. “Did I—”

“Hush. I’m rewarding you for all your hard work.” He walked Fernando backwards the three steps to the bed and pushed gently at his shoulder until he sat down. Then he knelt down in front of him.

“Oh. Oh, okay.”

Dan pushed Fernando’s knees apart and shuffled forward. He fumbled with the buttons on Fernando’s jeans, suddenly nervous again, but soon got them open and was tugging them down, Fernando lifting himself up so he could pull them over his hips. They got as far as his ankles before Dan realised Fernando still had his boots on. He unlaced them impatiently and pulled them off, quickly followed by his socks and jeans. When he looked up again, Fernando had stripped off his t-shirt too, leaving him in just his underwear and, well, wasn’t that a sight and a half. He drank in the view for a moment before sending Fernando’s boxers in the same direction as the rest of his clothes. He was mostly hard already; Dan wrapped his fingers around his length and Fernando swore above him. Dan looked up as he started to pump his hand slowly. Fernando was leaning back on his hands and gaze was fixed on Dan’s movements. He glanced up when he realised Dan was watching him.

“I’ve been wondering what your hand would look like wrapped around me.”

“And?”

“Looks pretty good,” he gasped. 

Dan smiled. “I think I can do better than pretty good,” he said, a little surprised at his own boldness. He leaned down and licked at the head of Fernando’s cock, smiling at the gratifying intake of breath it produced. He did it again and then sucked lightly, provoking another gasp. He glanced up in time to see Fernando’s eyes closing. He sucked a little harder and then slid his mouth as far down Fernando’s shaft as he could go, which was about halfway. Fernando wasn’t huge, though he was by no means small either, but Dan was out of practice and he had never been able to get rid of his gag-reflex anyway. If Fernando was expecting porn-style deep-throating he was going to be disappointed.

He didn’t seem disappointed, judging by the way he was moaning and swearing. In his peripheral vision, Dan could see his hands grasping convulsively at the sheets; at one point he lifted one of them off the bed as though to touch Dan, but he let it fall back. Dan wanted to tell him that he could, if he wanted. Could pull his hair, push his head down, do whatever the fuck he wanted really. But that would mean stopping, and Dan was enjoying himself too much to stop; the way Fernando’s eyelids fluttered and his forehead furrowed, the now near-constant stream of Spanish and broken English — and Dan didn’t know why he had such a thing for men who were vocal in bed but he did, he really did — the way Fernando’s chest heaved and his stomach rippled, the clenching and quivering of the thigh-muscles under his free hand. Dan was so hard he ached with it and Fernando had barely even touched him yet.

Dan’s jaw was just starting to ache — he really was out of practice — when Fernando’s long fingers started plucking at his t-shirt. “Hey. Hey, how come I’m the only one naked?” Dan looked up to find Fernando watching him through lust-blown eyes. “Take this off. I want, I need to see you. Please.” Dan could hardly say no to that. He pulled off slowly, wringing one last groan out of Fernando, then took hold of the neck of his t-shirt and pulled it over his head. “I knew it. God, I knew you’d be covered in them.”

“You like?”

“You have no idea.” He hooked his hands under Dan’s arms and hauled him to his feet, then yanked his jeans and underwear down. Dan toed off his trainers just as Fernando pulled him down on top of him. Fernando’s hands were roaming feverishly over Dan’s back, nails scraping the skin. Dan just about managed to keep enough presence of mind to kick his jeans and boxers off before Fernando rolled them over so Dan was underneath him. He lowered his head and ran his tongue over Dan’s shoulder, and Dan knew he was following the lines of ink there. “Turn over,” he breathed, his eyes burning. A thought suddenly occurred to Dan that really ought to have occurred to him earlier.

“I don’t have anything. Any condoms or lube or anything.”

“That’s okay, I don’t have anything either,” Fernando said. “Turn over.”

Dan frowned. “No, that’s not okay.”

Fernando stared at him for a minute before understanding seemed to sink in. “Oh. No, I just— I want to see. Your back.”

“Oh.” He turned over, Fernando’s cock brushing against his hip as he did so.

“ _Hostia_.” It was the last thing Fernando said for a while, his mouth otherwise occupied by Dan’s body as he ran his tongue the length and width of Dan’s back. Every so often the tip of his cock would glance across Dan’s skin as he moved, leaving streaks of pre-come across his lower back, his cheeks, his thighs. Dan was so turned on he wanted to scream. 

After approximately a million years, or possibly about five minutes, Fernando stopped his tortuous movements and straddled Dan’s lower back. With his hands on Dan’s shoulder blades and his cock pressed hard against Dan’s spine he leaned his weight forward so he could whisper into Dan’s ear. “Can I, _joder_ , Dan—” He was rocking his hips restlessly against Dan’s back. “Can I come on your back, on your tattoos?”

Apparently it wasn’t too soon to be asking for weird stuff after all. 

“Yes. Fuck, yes, yes.” The movement of Fernando’s hips increased before Dan had even finished speaking, pushing harder and faster. Cold air rushed over Dan’s skin as Fernando lifted away from him, one hand on the bed and the other still planted on Dan’s shoulder blade to support himself as he rocked against his lower back. Fernando’s cock slid along his spine, occasionally gliding across the cleft of his arse, and God, it felt good. He certainly wasn’t going to get off like this, but the feel of Fernando hard against him, his thigh’s pressed against Dan’s, his weight crushing him into the mattress, it was the best sex Dan had had in a long, long time, and so far the only thing that had touched his cock was his own bedsheets. 

“Dan, Dan, _Dios_ ,” Fernando’s voice cracked and the rest was incoherent as he took away the hand that was on Dan’s shoulder and shifted his weight a little. Dan craned his head round but he didn’t have to look to know that Fernando was jacking himself off, the tip of his cock brushing against Dan’s spine right where he had been thrusting moments before. Dan writhed against the mattress, desperately trying to get some friction for his poor aching cock. Fernando leaned forward to snatch a kiss from Dan’s mouth but soon pulled back again, his head bowed as his hips worked frantically against his own hand. Dan let his head drop back to the pillow and a moment later Fernando grunted and groaned and went still as wet warmth covered Dan’s back. He collapsed against Dan with another groan and a kiss to Dan’s neck, where he murmured something Dan couldn’t catch. The full weight of him was suffocating, squeezing what little breath Dan currently had out of his lungs. Dan pushed upwards and Fernando took the hint and sat up, giving Dan enough space to flip over onto his back. Fernando settled back down, still straddling him but across his thighs now.

“Give me a second and I’ll take care of that for you,” he rasped, nodding at Dan’s swollen erection. Pretty sure that if he waited another second he would actually explode, Dan shook his head and took hold of his cock. His own touch had never, ever felt so good; pleasure shot through him, arrowing through every part of his body. He groaned in relief and began working his hand. “God, look at you.” Fernando was smiling down at him, heavy-lidded and languid, his stomach sheened with his own come. Dan could feel his orgasm building already, twisting and tightening and making him dizzy. He watched Fernando as his eyes traveled from Dan’s face to his cock and back again, and he never would have thought he would enjoy this, would get such a thrill out of being exposed and on show like this. But then, he was pretty sure no-one had ever looked at him the way Fernando was looking at him now. The tight, coiling pleasure suddenly unfurled, spiraling through him as he came hard, every muscle tightening and relaxing with his release. He lay panting on the bed for a dazed moment. Fernando was still watching him.

“You are a very unusual landlord,” he said when he could manage to speak.

Fernando gave a surprised laugh. “Well, the job didn’t come with a handbook. I’m just doing the best I can.”

“If it did have a handbook, I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t be in it.”

“You don’t know that,” he said, still smiling. He leaned forward, propped on his elbows either side of Dan’s head, and dropped a leisurely kiss on Dan’s mouth. “Can I use your shower?” he said, then frowned. “That works, right?”

“Right. It’s not very good, but it works. And yes, you can use it.”

Fernando grinned and pecked at his lips again. “Thanks.”

Dan watched unabashedly as Fernando retrieved his clothes and headed towards the bathroom. If someone had told him that morning that by the end of the day he would be watching that arse walk naked out of his bedroom he would have laughed at them. 

Sometimes, life was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Fernando fucks up.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dear. I fear I may have unduly worried (or unduly excited) people with my note at the end of the last chapter. Fernando doesn't fuck up _that_ badly. He's just kind of a dick.

They were sitting on what would one day be the roof of what would one day be Pepe’s house. Because, as he put it, what was the point of employing a load of tradesmen if you couldn’t exploit them and make them build your house for you?

“You’re staying then?” Fernando said, unwrapping his lunch from its cling film and pulling a face at it.

“Huh?” Pepe said from around a mouthful of pasty. 

“All this.” He indicated the scaffolding they were sitting on, the work-crew milling about, the expanse of mud that would eventually be Pepe’s garden. “You wouldn’t be building this place if you were planning on going back to Spain.”

“Well, no, I wouldn’t. This is just occurring to you now? We’ve been working on this for months.” He squinted at Fernando suspiciously. “Why are you asking?”

“No reason. Just wondering.”

“Oh god, you’re leaving aren’t you? You can’t leave, I need you. You’re my best plumber. You’re my only gas-fitter. You can’t go.”

“And here I was thinking you wanted me to stay out of friendship.”

“Ok, yes, that too. But mostly the gas-fitting thing.”

“Thanks. I’m not planning on leaving. I’m not planning anything, I’m just sort of drifting.”

“Ah.”

“This was only ever supposed to be temporary, but it’s three years later and I’m still here. At some point I have to make a decision, don’t I?”

“Not necessarily. Nothing’s set in stone, except hopefully that gatepost at the bottom of the drive.”

“That gatepost is perfect and I won’t hear a word said against it.”

“Yes, you did a very good job,” Pepe said soothingly. “For a plumber you’re a pretty decent brick-layer. The point is that the gatepost and everything else here can be sold if Yolanda and I ever decide we don’t want to stay here after all.” Fernando chewed reluctantly on his sandwich and didn’t say anything. “Look, I’m not saying don’t go back. If you want to go, then go. I’ll miss you but if it’s what you want you should do it. But don’t do it just because, I don’t know, because you feel like you should.”

“Don’t do what?” Cesc’s voice suddenly cut into the conversation and a heavy weight pressed against Fernando’s side. Fernando pushed Cesc away from him, being careful to push him backwards so he didn’t fall off the scaffolding, however tempting it may be. He was caught before he landed on his arse by Juan, the traitor.

“He’s talking about going back to Spain.”

“What, permanently?” Cesc said. Fernando nodded. “Why?”

“Maybe because it’s my home? Because my family are there?”

“Well, yeah, but I thought you were happy here.”

Fernando shrugged. “I’m happy enough. But there’s nothing really keeping me here.”

“Thanks, Fer,” Juan said. “We love you too.”

“You think I should stay for you guys?”

“For us, for your job, for the prospect of maybe not coming bottom of the pub league next season, for Friday nights at Gerrard’s, for that take-away down on Banks Street that you like so much. You have a life here, Fernando, there isn’t _nothing_ keeping you here.”

“I know that, I know. And it’s not like I’m going to be jumping on a plane tomorrow. I just feel like there’s something missing, that’s all.”

“I know what’s missing,” Pepe said, in a voice that was entirely too sweet and innocent to be at all sweet and innocent. Fernando turned to him slowly, silently pleading with him not to say what he just knew he was going to say.

“What? Some Danish pastry?” Cesc said, and he and Juan cackled. Fernando almost sprained his neck whipping round to glare at them in shock and then back at Pepe.

“You told them?” He hissed.

“I didn’t know it was a secret.”

“We’re hurt you didn’t tell us yourself,” Juan said. “The most interesting thing to happen to you in forever and we have to find out from him?” He indicated Pepe with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“Hey, ‘him’ is your boss, Mata. Watch yourself.”

“It’s none of your business. I regret telling him about, nevermind you two knowing as well.”

“Once again, ‘him’ pays your wages. A bit of respect, please.”

“I still think you should have told us.”

“And why, exactly, do you have the automatic right to know about everyone I sleep with?” He regretted the words as soon as he said them, but it was too late. There was no taking them back. There was a split second of silence and then:

“I knew it!”

“You fucked him?”

“Oh my god, you actually did it.”

Fernando sighed. “Yes, alright. I did. Are you happy now?”

“Pay up, you two,” Pepe said, holding out his hand to Cesc and Juan and wiggling his fingers.

“You bet on it?” Fernando didn’t know why he was surprised. Of course this was why Pepe had been on his case about it. Of course it was. “And you wonder why I want to get away from you lot.”

“Oh, please, you love us,” Cesc said, placing a loud sloppy kiss on Fernando’s cheek. Fernando squirmed away.

“Ew. I do not. Leave me alone.”

“So, are you going to tell us the juicy details?” Juan said

“God no. Why? Have you got more money riding on the specifics?”

“Of course not,” Juan said, completely failing to look shocked. “We’re concerned friends.”

“If I don’t tell you, are you just going to nag me incessantly about it until I give in?”

“Yes,” they chorused.

“Fine, I’ll tell you. But no more bets about my sex life.” They looked uncertain but there was no way he was telling them anything until they agreed. They nodded reluctantly. He gave them a brief rundown of Sunday’s events, glossing over the more intimate parts as best he could. It really was none of their damn business, and dwelling on it too long tended to result in uncomfortable and inappropriate erections and he could do without that right now. “I had a shower, arranged to go back this Saturday to fix the dishwasher, and I left. That’s it.”

“‘Fix the dishwasher’? Is that a euphemism?” Juan said. 

“Oh my god, no, that’s not a fucking euphemism. The dishwasher doesn’t work. I’m going to fix it.”

“Alright, there’s no need to take my head off.”

“Hang on a minute,” Cesc said. “You’re saying you didn’t actually have sex?”

“Yes he did, you heard him,” Pepe said. “You’re not wriggling out of it, you owe me.”

“He said they didn’t have any condoms so they did ‘other stuff’. They didn’t have sex.”

“You really need to adjust your heteronormative ideas of sex. Just because a penis didn’t go into something doesn’t mean sex didn’t occur,” Juan said, before clamping his hand over his mouth. Cesc glared at him while Pepe laughed. Fernando prayed for death. He didn’t care whose at this point.

“Whose side are you on, Mata?” Cesc said.

“Sorry.”

“That’s right,” Pepe crowed. “What he said about hetero-whatsit. Besides, a penis definitely went into something, it went into the Danish kid’s mouth.”

“That doesn’t count,” Cesc insisted.

“Fernando,” Pepe said. “What occurred between you and the Danish boy, do you consider it to be sex?”

“His name’s Dan,” Fernando said. “And I’m done with this conversation.”

“Oh, stop pouting. The sooner you answer the question the sooner we can leave you alone.”

Fernando thought about Dan writhing underneath him, about coming on his back, the ink there. About watching him get himself off, the way their eyes had locked every time Fernando managed to drag his gaze away from Dan’s hand working his cock, the sound Dan made as he came. He fought the urge to adjust his suddenly uncomfortable underwear. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, we had sex.”

Pepe let out a quiet cheer while Cesc groaned. “Dammit,” Juan muttered. Neither he nor Cesc looked too put out though. Cesc grinned at him and slapped him on the back.

“Anyway,” Pepe said. “As fun as this lunch break has been, and it really has been fun, we need to get back to work. Yolanda and I want to move in before Christmas.” 

Fernando scrambled to his feet, his torture over, and heard Cesc mutter “Shit, I almost forgot.” Then his so-called friend leaned forward, cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted down to the rest of the crew. “Hey, guys! Torres fucked the Danish boy!” There was a loud cheer from the people on the ground, and several whistles. “And he’s going to fuck him again on Saturday!” More cheers and whistles. Fernando groaned and hid his face in his hands.

~~

Dan was just about to go to bed when the doorbell rang. He considered ignoring it; nothing good came of answering the door at half past one in the morning. But people tended not to ring the doorbell in the middle of the night for no good reason. It might be important. In any event, whoever was ringing the bell showed no sign of stopping any time soon. Maybe it was Nick. If it was Nick, he was going to kill him. He stomped back down the stairs, found his keys among the debris littering the table, and unlocked the door. The doorbell was still going. It was almost certainly Nick. He yanked the door open, ready to give him a piece of his mind.

It wasn’t Nick.

Fernando leaned in the doorway. He was dressed to go out; smart jeans and a white shirt that had probably been crisp and clean when he put it on, but was now rumpled and damp and appeared to have lipstick and foundation smeared on the collar. Dan wanted to rip it off, and also possibly kill the owner of the lipstick and foundation. “Hi,” Fernando said with a bleary smile.

“Hi,” Dan replied. He didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t know the etiquette for when the landlord you had sex with a week ago suddenly turned up drunk on your doorstep in the middle of the night.

“I know I am a bit early,” Fernando said. He held is wrist up in front of his face and peered at his watch, moving it back and forth as though trying to get it in focus. “But it is technically Saturday.”

“So you’re here to fix the dishwasher?” Dan said, the last shreds of annoyance fading away. Drunk Fernando was kind of adorable.

“Yes! Wait, no. Yes. But not really. Only euphem— euphatic— euphel— _puta madre_ , I hate this stupid language.”

“I don’t think it’s the language that’s the problem,” Dan said laughing. “Do you want to come in? Maybe for some coffee or water or something.”

“Yes,” Fernando said, stumbling forward. Dan took him by the elbow and led him to the kitchen. “For coffee. That is another euphe-thing. Why does nobody in this bloody country just say what they mean?”

“Like you?” Dan said, propping Fernando in a chair and filling the kettle. “Because I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He turned the kettle on and started rootling through the cupboard above the sink for a clean mug. Fernando’s chair scraped against the kitchen floor.

“Don’t you? I thought you did. I thought everybody did. I thought it was obvious. Everyone at work knows. Everyone.” A pair of hands slipped around his waist and rested on his stomach. “I was out with friends tonight but I left early.” Fernando’s hands slipped under Dan’s t-shirt and traced over his skin. His breath was hot on the back of Dan’s neck. Dan paused his mug search. “Cesc dragged us to this club and I do not know why I agreed because Cesc takes us to the most worst places.” The fingers wandered lower, skimming the waistband of Dan’s sweatpants. The solid heat of Fernando’s chest pressed up against his back. Fernando’s lips brushed his ear. Dan gave up looking through the cupboard and gripped the edge of the counter. “There was this girl who was— hands, everywhere. And I couldn’t get rid of her even when I told her I was gay. And then this guy. He was hot. Really hot.” And Dan would have been annoyed about this except Fernando’s hand had slipped inside his pants and was running teasing fingers up and down his cock, and it was pretty hard to be annoyed about anything when he was doing that. “I would have gone home with him, but there was you. I could not stop thinking about you. You are all I am thinking about all night. About your body, and art. Your body is art.” Dan groaned as Fernando wrapped his hand around him. “And how good you were, how good you looked on your knees. Your mouth around my cock.” He nibbled at Dan’s earlobe. “How much I wanted to fuck you. Can I fuck you, Dan?” Dan groaned again and turned around in Fernando’s arms. It meant losing Fernando’s touch on his cock, but that was more than made up for by the way Fernando immediately pinned him against the counter and pressed their hips together. “Can I fuck you?” he said again.

“Yes. Christ, yes,” Dan said, slipping his arms around Fernando’s neck and kissing him. Fernando moaned into his mouth. “As long as you’re not too drunk to get it up.” Fernando pulled back, looking hilariously offended, then smirked and ground his hips against Dan’s. Then he took Dan’s hand and placed it on the definite bulge in his jeans and gave him a smug, pointed look. Apparently, as well as being kind of adorable, drunk Fernando was also kind of obnoxious. Dan squeezed Fernando’s cock through the denim and watched his eyes fall closed. 

“I think I can work with that,” Dan said, and laughed quietly as Fernando glared at him through narrowed eyes. He was unbuckling Fernando’s belt when he thought of something else. “Um,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “Did you bring anything? Because I still haven’t got anything.” Fernando stared at him.

“Still? Still you have no condoms after what happened on Sunday? You knew I was to come over tomorrow. Today. Whatever.”

“And you just assume we would have sex?”

“Yes.”

Dan had to admit it was a reasonable assumption. “Well, what about you. Who comes round in the middle of the night looking for sex and doesn’t bring anything to facilitate sex?”

“I am drunk, Daniel. I cannot be expected to facili— facilitatatate anything.”

“Fuck,” Dan said, slumping against the counter. “We’re both idiots.”

Fernando took his face in his hands and leaned their foreheads together. “I want to fuck you, Dan. I want you to fuck me. Is not fair. _Hostia_ , I want, I want…” he drifted off into slurred Spanish. Dan pulled his head back to look at him, and it was incredible, really, how even with blood-shot eyes and stinking of booze, he was still the most beautiful thing Dan had ever seen. For one stupid moment he considered doing it anyway with no protection and using olive oil as lube. But one of them had to be sensible and it certainly wasn’t going to be Fernando. He swung Fernando round so he was the one with his back against the counter, and answered his surprised, questioning look by sinking to his knees. Fernando smiled down at him.

Definitely not too drunk to get it up, Dan thought as he freed Fernando from his boxer briefs. Looking up at Fernando’s lopsided smile, Dan could only hope that he also wasn’t too drunk to come as he took Fernando into his mouth. Fernando didn’t stop himself this time; his hands slipped immediately into Dan’s hair, pulling every time Dan did something he liked. Dan moaned as he slid his mouth up and down Fernando’s cock, the tugs on his hair and the soft pressure on the back of his head sending little shivers through his body. Fernando’s hips started moving and Dan rested his hands on them in case he needed to stop him, but he wasn’t really thrusting, just rocking into Dan’s mouth. He sped up as Dan sucked harder, his hands twisting in Dan’s hair. He moaned Dan’s name, followed by another stream of incomprehensible Spanish. His hands tightened in his hair so hard that Dan winced, and that was all the warning he got before Fernando came weakly in his mouth. 

Dan sat back on his heels, struggling to swallow out of surprise more than anything else. Fernando cupped his chin in one hand and used his thumb to wipe away the little bit of come that leaked out of the corner of Dan’s mouth. For a second he looked completely sober, his eyes clear, and he smiled sweetly at Dan. Then the haze came back and he pushed himself away from the counter. “I don’t know what’s keeping me here,” he muttered. And he zipped up his jeans and staggered out of the kitchen and out of the house.

~~

There was a cushion in his mouth and cotton-wool in his head. He spat out the cushion but there was nothing he could do about the cotton-wool, or about the throbbing pain in his temples when he moved, or the churning of his stomach. Keeping very, very still, Fernando slowly opened his eyes. The light in the room was just the wrong side of bearable, and it took a while for Fernando to stop blinking and focus on where he was. Cesc’s living room. This was Cesc’s living room, which meant he was in Cesc’s flat. What the fuck was he doing in Cesc’s flat? He went back over the night before. Cesc had made them go to that godawful club, as was his wont. And there had been that girl. Several girls. And then that guy. And then… he couldn’t remember. Had he left? Had he— Fernando froze. No. He hadn’t. He couldn’t have.

But he had.

He planted his face back into the cushion and didn’t move again until he heard a door open several minutes later. He lifted his head and saw Cesc coming out of his bedroom. “Ah. It’s awake,” Cesc said. “Can you tell me why I came home to find you asleep on the couch in the lobby?”

Fernando slowly levered himself up into something approximating an upright position. It was far harder than it should have been. “Because I had no money for a taxi and my place was too far to walk.”

“Juan saw you get into a taxi,” Cesc said with a frown.

“Yeah, I uh, didn’t go straight home from the club.”

“Where did you go?”

“Dan’s house.”

“Oh God. What did you do?”

Fernando told him. Cesc stared at him for several long seconds. “I can’t deal with you before coffee,” he said, and disappeared into the kitchen. Fernando sank back into the sofa cushions and breathed deeply in an attempt to quell the nausea. Once it had died down he fished into his pocket and pulled out his phone. No messages, no texts. One missed call, from his brother. He pulled up Dan’s number and stared at it. What would he even say if he called him? This seemed like the sort of apology that should be made in person, but turning up out of the blue was part of the problem in the first place. Though it was hardly out of the blue when he was due to go round there later anyway. Oh god, he was due to go round there later. He had to fix the dishwasher, not to mention all the other stuff that needed doing. He still had actual landlord responsibilities. 

He opened up his texts, quickly typed _Sorry_ , and pressed send. He regretted it before he had even lifted his finger from the screen. Of all his possible options, that was far and away the worst one he could have picked. Which if nothing else was in keeping with his behaviour over the last twelve hours or so.

Cesc’s bedroom door opened again and Juan came out. Fernando blinked at him as his brain tried to connect Juan being in Cesc’s bedroom with something that would explain Juan being in Cesc’s bedroom. “Were you here last night?” he asked. Juan rolled his eyes.

“No, Fer, I used my teleportation skills to materialise myself here this morning.” He folded his arms. “You look like shit.”

“I feel like shit.”

“You did something stupid last night, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Fernando said. Juan raised a pointed eyebrow. “Please don’t make me say it all again,” Fernando begged. “Cesc can fill you in. He’s in the kitchen.”

Juan looked like he might argue but instead he just shook his head and headed into the kitchen. Two minutes later he was back with a steaming mug in each hand and an incredulous expression on his face. He handed one of the mugs to Fernando who wrapped his hands around it gratefully. If there was one thing Cesc did really well it was coffee. And cutting the perfect bevelled edge, though that was less relevant right now.

“You are unbelievable,” Juan said, sitting beside him.

“I know. I feel awful.” Fernando sipped pitifully at his coffee. A sizzling sound and the smell of bacon wafted in from the kitchen and his stomach growled in both anticipation and protest.

“You know, there have been studies that show that hangovers are made exponentially worse by guilt and embarrassment.”

“There have not been studies that show that.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do.”

“Did you at least apologise to the poor guy?”

Fernando shifted in his seat. “Yes.”

“Really?”

“I texted him this morning.”

“Jesus Christ. There is something wrong with you. Pepe’s right, you have issues.”

Privately — very privately — Fernando agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun thing to do if you're a sober person with one or more drunk people: engineer the conversation to get them to say 'euphemistically'.
> 
> Next chapter: Fernando atones for his sins.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, this was like pulling teeth (a phrase I have new appreciation for after getting one of my own teeth pulled). Anyway, it's done and I'm reasonably happy with it.
> 
> A quick note on their tattoos: obviously there are no wives, girlfriends or kids in this universe, so tattoos of their names don't exist. Also, I'm pretending that chain on Dan's neck and the tattoos on his legs don't exist either, because I don't like them and it's my fic I can do what I want.

Dan didn’t like confrontation. He was bad at it and it was unpleasant and he just didn’t like it. Which was why he had planned to be out when Fernando came to actually fix the dishwasher. He was fine with just avoiding him forever and communicating entirely by text and email.

Unfortunately, being up all night tossing and turning and alternately cursing both himself and Fernando had caused him to sleep in, and he woke up to the sound of the doorbell. He staggered wearily down the stairs, yanking up his too-loose sweatpants and wondering despairingly why Fernando always ended up seeing him in this state. He reminded himself that he didn’t care, that Fernando’s opinion no longer mattered to him, because Fernando was a prick. A beautiful, charming, funny prick no doubt, but really that just made it worse. He schooled his face into the least half-asleep, most stern expression he could muster and opened the door.

Fernando stood on the doorstep looking sheepish, tired and nauseous. Good, thought Dan, and folded his arms. “Look,” Fernando began. “Dan, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. There’s no excuse for my behaviour, none at all. I was a twat and I’m really, really sorry.” He bit his lip, looking almost hopeful. Dan tried to keep his face neutral and not give away how much the damn puppy-dog eyes were tugging at his heartstrings. “I understand you probably don’t want anything to do with me. If you want, I can just get people in to sort out things around here and we can do everything through the management company. You won’t have to see or hear from me again.”

Dan glared at him for a moment. “Just fix the fucking dishwasher and get out,” he snapped. Then he turned round and stomped upstairs to take a shower.

Hot water poured down on him, washing away the fuzzy-headed feeling of being woken up too suddenly from a deep sleep. His hands drifted towards his morning erection, Fernando flickering through his head; he may have been an arsehole but he was still decent wank material. Then he remembered the mortification that had filled him when Fernando left, how humiliated he had felt kneeling on his kitchen floor as Fernando zipped up his jeans and walked out without so much as an apology or a goodbye. His cock wilted in his hands and seemed unwilling to become anything more than half-hard again. Swearing in frustration he turned the shower off, dried himself, and got dressed in the whatever clothes he could find that seemed more or less clean.

Back in the kitchen, things were awkward. There wasn’t much room in there to begin with, and with the dishwasher pulled out and Fernando’s tools scattered around there was even less. Daniel stepped over Fernando’s legs to get to the kettle, determinedly not looking at him as he did so. Fernando was constantly in his peripheral vision, his movements stilted and clumsy rather than his usual I’ve-done-this-a-thousand-times-my-limbs-could-do-this-on-their-own rhythm; he kept picking things up and putting them down, and a couple of times he glanced towards Dan, seemed like he was about to say something, and looked away again. Dan kept his eyes on the steam rising slowly from the kettle. It was only when he was pouring the water that he realised he had automatically got out two mugs, one for him and one for Fernando. He put the spare mug back into the cupboard and made as dignified an exit as he could, which was only slightly marred when he had to go back when he realised he had forgotten his cereal.

He sat in his living room, eating his breakfast, which was pretty much lunch by now, and channel hopping. Things were unusually quiet in the kitchen, with none of the banging and scraping and occasional Spanish muttering that Dan had come to expect when Fernando was working. He leaned his head back so he could see through the door and saw Fernando kneeling on the floor with his head in his hands, rather like Dan himself had been in the early hours of the morning. After a couple of seconds he raked his fingers through his hair, rubbed his tired-looking eyes and got back to work. Dan looked away.

It was when he went back into the kitchen to put his dirty mug and bowl in the sink that his anger got the better of his reticence. “You know,” he said, a little surprised at how even his voice sounded given how much his heart was pounding. Fernando looked up. “Even when it’s just casual sex you do need to treat people with respect.” Fernando opened his mouth to reply, but the words that had been seething and swirling in Dan’s head all night had found an outlet and they would not be interrupted. “I mean, turning up here drunk and looking for sex is not exactly appropriate behaviour but I was okay with that. You’re a cute drunk and it’s not like I was opposed to the idea of sleeping with you again. But going on about some hot guy you met at the club? Letting me suck you off and then just walking out without returning the favour, because there’s ‘nothing to keep you here’? You can’t just use people like that, Fernando.”

Fernando scrambled to his feet, his eyes wide. “No, Dan. No—”

“And then that fucking text this morning, that— that afterthought. Like I can just be fobbed off with a one-word text after you made me feel completely worthless. I realise I’m just the most convenient in the long line of people who apparently throw themselves at you on a regular basis, but I deserve better than that.” He leaned against the counter, his anger fading away to tiredness. His hands were shaking. He felt better now that all that was off his chest but he could hardly say he was any happier about the situation. “I thought you were a nice guy,” he muttered.

Fernando came towards him but stopped a couple of steps away. He looked absolutely horrified. He reached his hands out towards Dan, then let them drop. “Dan, please,” he implored. “Please, listen to me. You’ve got it wrong. I never meant— I didn’t want— You’re— _Madre_ , I’m bad at this.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “You’re right, you don’t deserve to be made to feel worthless, you definitely don’t deserve that and I’m so, so sorry I made you feel that way. I wasn’t using you, or I never intended to, and you weren’t just ‘convenient’. When I came round last night it was because I wanted _you_ , not some random guy in a crappy nightclub. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. That’s what I was trying to say. I just fucked it up.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair; Dan waited for him to explain the rest of it, his hands gripping the edge of the counter. “What I said about not knowing what’s keeping me here, I didn’t mean here in this house. I meant here in this country. I’ve been thinking about it lately, about going home, about whether I’m going to stay here. I guess it was on my mind at that moment, I don’t know. It wasn’t about you, it was about me and what’s going on in my stupid head. You know what it’s like when you’re drunk, you just say stuff. You don’t think about context or whether it even makes sense. I didn’t think about how it would sound to you, to say that as I was leaving.”

“But why were you leaving at all? Why did you just walk out like that?”

“I don’t know,” Fernando said helplessly, and either he was a really good actor or he was genuinely upset about this. “I don’t know. I don’t remember what I was thinking, I just remember feeling like I had to get out. I was drunk. I know that’s no excuse. I know that doesn’t undo my hurting you, or that stupid text this morning, and I wish I had a better explanation, any explanation. But I don’t, I’m sorry.” Dan snorted and looked away. Fernando stepped forward and tentatively took Dan’s hands in his. Dan let him, but didn’t return his hold. “There’s no excuse for my behaviour, and I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want anything else to do with me. But you should know that you’re really great, okay? If you believe nothing else I say, please believe that. You are sweet and funny and talented and good-looking and my behaviour last night is not a reflection of what I think of you or how I feel you deserve to be treated.” He squeezed Dan’s hands. “I hope you can forgive me, but if you don’t I understand.”

Dan stared down at their joined hands, then pulled his away. Fernando hung his head. “Thank you for your apology.” He pushed past Fernando, pulled his trainers on without undoing the laces, grabbed his jacket and left.

~~

About an hour after he left, Dan was back. Fernando had made little, if any, progress on the dishwasher. It was difficult to concentrate when he kept picturing Dan’s face as he said Fernando had made him feel worthless. His behaviour was bad, he knew that, but he hadn’t realised just how bad it had appeared from Dan’s perspective. An afterthought, he had said. Christ. 

He looked up when Dan came into the kitchen. His face was never easy to read, except when he was embarrassed, but Fernando thought his expression looked a little softer than it had when he left. Less strained. He toed his trainers off and kicked them into the corner. “I went for a walk,” he said, slipping off his jacket and throwing it onto the table. “Thought about what you said.” He leaned over the table and pulled something out of a pocket in his jacket. “I called in at the pharmacy on the way back.” He laid the package on the counter next to Fernando.

“Oh?” Fernando said, staring at the bag, the green pharmacy cross printed on the white paper. He hoped to god this meant what he thought it meant. He looked up at Dan; a smile was pulling at the corners of his mouth.

“So. How are you going to make it up to me?”

Emboldened by the smile and the suggestive tone of Dan’s voice, not to mention what Dan had presumably picked up at the pharmacy, Fernando stepped forward into Dan’s personal space. “How would you like me to make it up to you?” he said, feeling his own mouth stretching into a smile. “I’ll do anything you want.”

“Well,” Dan said, with feigned thoughtfulness. “By my calculations you owe me two blowjobs and a fuck. So how about we start there?”

Fernando laughed with relief. “I can do that.” He closed the last bit of space between them and hesitantly, still unsure if this was allowed, pressed his lips to Dan’s. 

Dan responded softly at first, and Fernando sank into it; the slow, unhurried pace, the light sweep of Dan’s tongue, Dan’s hands at his waist, in his hair. Gradually the kiss deepened, their movements greedier, more fierce. Dan’s hands grasped at him, pulling at his hair, his clothes. Eventually they broke apart, breathless. “Bedroom,” Dan gasped. “Blowjob. Now.” He grabbed Fernando’s hand and pulled him out of the kitchen and up the stairs, picking up the pharmacy bag on the way.

“Clothes off,” Dan said the second they were through the bedroom door. He pulled his t-shirt over his head. Fernando laughed and complied.

“No need to try to seduce me with all this sweet-talk, I’m already going to sleep with you.”

Dan dropped a quick kiss on Fernando’s mouth. “You’re supposed to be making amends, not being a smart-arse. Clothes.” Fernando bent down to unlace his boots, pulled them off, then slipped his jeans off. When he stood back up, Dan was sitting on the bed in his underwear, watching him. 

“Are you checking me out, Daniel?”

“You’re still being a smart-arse. Come here.”

“So you can find other things for me to do with my mouth?” Fernando said, walking to the bed.

“Something like that.” 

Fernando knelt on the bed and pushed Dan’s shoulders gently until he was laid back against the pillows. He kissed Dan softly, nipping at his lower lip, then worked his way over his jaw and down his neck, alternately kissing, licking and sucking, and throwing in the occasional scrape of teeth for good measure. He lingered for a moment at his shoulders, but this was about making it up to Dan, not indulging his own tattoo fetish, so he resolutely ignored his arms, those goddamn arms, Christ, and made his way slowly down his chest instead, listening for the changes in Dan’s breathing that told him where his sensitive spots were. There were a couple of tattoos on his ribs that Fernando hadn’t noticed before which, with great self-restraint, he also ignored. He stopped when he reached Dan’s underwear, lapping at the skin there. The head of Dan’s cock was just poking out above the waistband and Fernando swiped his tongue over it, just once. Dan groaned and muttered something that sounded like ‘fucking tease’. Fernando grinned and slipped Dan’s underwear off before settling down to lick and nuzzle at the V of his hips and the inside of his thighs and the soft skin of his balls. “Fernando,” Dan growled after a couple of minutes of this. “If your mouth isn’t on my dick in the next ten seconds I am never speaking to you again.”

“Seems a bit harsh,” Fernando said, ensuring that his lips brushed ever so slightly against Dan’s cock as he spoke. “I’m just trying to make it good for you.” Dan growled again. Fernando took the head lightly between his lips and swirled his tongue around it. Dan’s growl turned into a low hum.

Fernando had never loved the taste or feel of another man’s cock in his mouth, although he didn’t dislike it either. What he did love, though, was getting someone off; listening to their breathing get steadily heavier; figuring out what they liked, what would make them cry out, what would make their hips jerk and their legs tremble; feeling someone come apart beneath him and knowing that he had made it happen. And though he would never say it in so many words, he knew he was pretty damn good at it.

He wrapped his lips around Dan’s cock and slid slowly down it, letting the friction do its work. Dan let out a soft moan, like a sigh. When Fernando had gone as far down as he could, he pulled back up, sucking gently, until the tip was just resting in his mouth, and Dan’s moan was louder this time, harsher. Fernando flicked his tongue against the tip, and smiled when Dan gasped. He repeated the entire procedure, then again, and again, and again, taking in a little more each time, varying the speed and pressure until he found the rhythm that made Dan swear at him and thrust his hips up. “Sorry,” Dan gasped when he hit the back of Fernando’s throat, making him gag slightly. Fernando looked up at him and smiled and shook his head as best he could to say that it was okay. Dan’s face was flushed, his chest heaving; one hand clutched at the sheets and the other stretched over his head to grip the headboard. Fernando resumed his previous pace and watched Dan’s face contort prettily, his brow furrowing and his lips parting, as he used his free hand to run a gentle fingernail up Dan’s perineum and along his sac. Dan writhed on the the bed and let out another cry, and Fernando knew he wasn’t far off now, his balls tightening and his legs beginning to move restlessly. Fernando increased his pressure and his pace just a little, and soon Dan was panting and his legs were wrapping around Fernando’s shoulders and back, the muscles tensing and flexing, and he came hard in Fernando’s mouth.

Fernando worked him through it, swallowing it all down and pulling off slowly once he was spent. He scattered butterfly kisses across Dan’s stomach while he waited for him to come down and get his breath back. Reaching down, he adjusted his incredibly uncomfortable underwear and suppressed a groan. He was perfectly happy to make this all about Dan and spend as much time as he needed to making up for the night before, but he very much hoped that the promised sex wasn’t going to be too far in the future.

“Fuck,” Dan said emphatically, followed by something in Danish. Fernando chuckled against his hip.

“You’re going to have to repeat that in English.”

“I said, ‘you bastard, why didn’t you do that last night?’” Dan said, breathless and laughing.

“Pretty sure I couldn’t have managed that last night.”

“Well, aren’t we pleased with ourselves?”

“Are you saying I shouldn’t be?”

Dan laughed again. “No, you should. You definitely should.”

Fernando ran his index finger gently over Dan’s hip and down. “So,” he said as his hand slipped to Dan’s inner thigh. “That fuck you wanted.” His finger traced the crack of Dan’s arse. 

“What about it?” Dan smiled.

“How did you want it? Because, you know, I don’t mind either way. You can fuck me if you want or—”

“No. I want you to,” Dan said. His cheeks were pink and Fernando was fairly sure it wasn’t just from the orgasm. He was so damn pretty like this, Fernando just wanted to look at him. “What?” Dan shifted under Fernando’s scrutiny and he turned even pinker.

“Nothing. So you definitely want to…” he slipped his finger between Dan’s cheeks and brushed it against his entrance.

“Yes. Yes, please.” 

Fernando pressed a kiss to the inside of Dan’s thigh, then leaned over the edge of the bed to retrieve the paper bag that Dan had tossed on the floor earlier. There was a bottle of lube and two boxes of condoms inside. “Ambitious.”

“Oh. Last night there weren’t enough condoms, now there are too many. There’s no pleasing you is there?”

“Lots of things please me,” Fernando said, opening the lube and slicking up his fingers. “Sucking you off pleases me. Making you beg pleases me. And I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m pretty sure fucking you is going to please me.”

“You haven’t made me beg.” 

“Not yet.” He pressed a finger up against Dan’s entrance.

“Are you always this cocky in bed?” Dan said a little shakily. Fernando considered it.

“No, actually,” he said, slipping his finger inside. Dan was hot and tight around it. “I guess you just bring it out in me.”

“Lucky me,” Dan gasped as Fernando started to move his hand. Dan’s body was relaxed and pliant and he took the intrusion easily. Fernando propped himself up on his free arm and feathered kisses up Dan’s thigh and across his pelvis, dragging his lips along his cock, which was just starting to twitch to life again. The tattoos on Dan’s side caught his eye again and he nuzzled his way over to them, figuring Dan wouldn’t mind if he indulged himself a bit. He slipped a second finger inside and Dan stiffened and twisted away for a second before settling back down. He started to rock against Fernando’s hand just a little. His hands were clenching the sheets again.

The tattoos ran all the way up Dan’s ribs, calligraphy merging into the artwork on his back. Fernando was about to run his tongue over one when he stopped. What if it was his mother’s name or something? That would be weird and inappropriate. Not in the good way. “Who…” 

“My sister,” he panted. “And my brother.” Right. Maybe not. He scissored his fingers, stretching Dan further and making him rock his hips harder, then turned his attention to Dan’s right hand, which now lay across his stomach. He kissed over the ink on his knuckles, followed the lines on his wrist. Dan made a choked sound that might have been a laugh. “You really have a thing for it, don’t you?”

“Uh-huh. Does that bother you?” He twisted his fingers, enjoying the way it made Dan’s abs tense and his back arch.

“No, no,” Dan moaned as he pushed against Fernando’s hand. “Doesn’t bother me.”

“Good,” Fernando said, and carefully added a third finger. Dan grunted and bucked on the bed, his hands scrabbling at the sheets and his own stomach. Fernando worked his hand slowly, trying to draw out more of those sounds. When he wasn’t being chatty, Daniel didn’t seem particularly vocal during sex. If he was going to get him to beg, Fernando was going to have to step it up. He ducked his head and took Dan’s cock into his mouth as he drove his fingers in deep. Dan cried out and squirmed, trying to simultaneously push back onto Fernando’s fingers and forward into his mouth. 

“Fernando, God. Please. Fuck, please,” Dan breathed. Fernando didn’t think he’d ever wanted anybody more in his life. He sucked hard on Dan’s cock then pulled his head away.

“How do you want—”

“On your back. Lie on your back.” And Fernando hadn’t expected that at all, but he certainly wasn’t going to complain. He gave his fingers one last twist just to watch the way it made Dan shudder, then slowly withdrew them. He wriggled out of his underwear as he moved away from Dan, then lay back on the bed and reached for the condoms as Dan straddled him. He fumbled with the box when Dan wrapped a hand round the back of his neck, leaned down, and pulled him into a deep kiss. Fernando hummed and pushed up into the kiss, but it was impossible to get the cellophane wrapper off when he couldn’t see what he was doing and his mind was mostly on Dan’s tongue, so eventually he had to reluctantly pull away, pushing Dan back until he was sitting on his thighs. After a minute or so of struggling, he finally managed to get a condom out of the box, making a mental note to email the manufacturer. Didn’t they know that people using their products tended not to be fully functioning at the time they used them? 

“This is how unwanted pregnancies happen,” he muttered, tearing open the foil. 

Dan gave an incredulous little laugh. “I don’t think that’s something we really need to be concerned about.”

Putting the condom on was excruciating, his cock having received no attention at all and being desperate for any kind of contact. Fernando bit his lip and breathed deeply and told himself he deserved to suffer a little. In fact, reliving the horror he had felt that morning as he had recalled the previous nights events helped quite a lot. He looked up from his task to find Dan watching him with an amused smile. “You okay?” Dan asked. Fernando nodded. Dan laughed quietly and sank down on him. He was hot and tight, and the only thing better than the feel of him was the view when Fernando looked down to where his cock was sliding in and out of him as he rocked his hips. Fernando closed his eyes and let his head fall back onto the bed with a groan. 

Dan set a languid pace and as much as Fernando wanted to thrust up hard into him, he resisted. If this was what Dan wanted, this is what he would get, though it felt like something akin to torture for Fernando. Dan sped up a little and shifted his weight to change the angle, taking Fernando in deeper, and Fernando knew he had found his prostate from the way his rhythm and his breathing faltered. “You okay?” Dan asked again, and Fernando felt fingers brush his jaw. He opened his eyes to the sight of Dan undulating on top of him, his eyelids fluttering with every downward thrust, that little half-smile on his face as he watched him. Fernando groaned and closed his eyes again.

“’M fine,” he managed.

“You sure? You don’t really seem like you’re enjoying yourself.” Through the breathlessness he sounded a little smug.

“Enjoying myself a bit too much,” Fernando said, trying to concentrate on his own breathing and not on how fucking good Dan felt, how he sounded.

“Fernando.” Dan’s fingers against his jaw again, his cheekbone. “Fernando. It’s okay.” He risked opening his eyes again and the first thing he saw was Dan’s hand wrapped around his own cock, those gorgeous fingers working smoothly along the shaft. Fernando’s hips bucked upwards and Dan’s rhythm faltered again, his head falling forward.

“Fuck. Dan, fuck, please, please, I’m going to come, Dan. I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“You’re going to have to repeat that in English,” Dan said with a smile.

“Dan, please,” Fernando said, not even sure what language he was speaking any more.

“It’s alright, Fernando. I want you to— I want—” he broke off, his cheeks flushing red, his hand speeding up. “I won’t be far behind you. I want you to.” Fernando groaned and thrust his hips up, and again, and then the last thread of his control snapped and he was pounding into Dan, holding his hips tight to pull him down against him. He was dimly aware of Dan’s voice, ragged and incoherent. He thought he heard his name. But his world had contracted almost entirely to the point where their bodies joined, to the rising, irresistible pressure, and to the climax that was rushing ever closer.

He came with a hoarse cry that ripped out of his throat so hard it hurt. For a few seconds his vision was light-speckled darkness and he couldn’t feel anything but the intense release and relief, his body sinking into the afterglow. Then the sun-filled room came into view. And Dan, his gaze fixed on Fernando’s face, still riding Fernando’s now over-sensitive cock, just the right side of too much. 

Fernando ran his hands over Dan’s thighs and watched him bring himself closer and closer to orgasm. He loved seeing Dan like this, exposed above him, for him. It was a complete reversal of their position the previous time they had been in bed together, but it was still just as beautiful watching his inhibitions fall away; the way he didn’t mind being on show like this, the way he _liked_ it. He closed his hand around Dan’s cock, entwining their fingers there. Dan let out a choked gasp and increased their pace, and soon he was coming hard over his stomach, over their joined hands. He didn’t move for several seconds, then he raised himself up so Fernando could slip out of him, and collapsed forwards and sideways until he landed breathless on the bed beside Fernando.

“Okay,” he said against Fernando’s shoulder. “You’re forgiven.” 

Fernando laughed. “Don’t I still owe you another blowjob?”

“Right. Make me lunch, then the blowjob, then you’re forgiven.”

“I should warn you, lunch probably won’t be up to the same sort of standard as the sex.”

Dan grinned. “I can live with that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Fernando gets some ink.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My usual apologies for how long this has taken me, the boys were being difficult. And I kept getting distracted by other things.

It became a regular thing. Fernando would go round to repair something and, sooner or later, they ended up having sex on the nearest flat surface. Had there actually been a schedule for the repairs, they would be well behind it. They didn’t call each other in between unless one of them had to change plans, they didn’t usually see each other more than once a week, and they didn’t leave Dan’s house. If it hadn’t been for Pepe’s smug little grin every time Fernando mentioned Dan in passing, or Juan and Cesc exchanging significant looks every time he got a text, it would have been perfect.

Dan was fucking him on the sofa in the living room. He was so close to coming but he didn’t want to, not yet. It felt too good having Dan inside him, having Dan’s chest pressed up against his back, breathing hard against his neck. But he was close, so close, and he could tell Dan was too; one hand tight on Fernando’s hip and the other tangled in his sweat-damp hair. Before long Dan was biting down on his shoulder as his hips thrust deep and stilled, and Fernando was crying out as he spilled over his own hand. They both collapsed sideways so they lay breathless on the sofa cushions, Dan spooning up against Fernando’s back. “I made a mess of your sofa again,” Fernando said, wiping off his hand. He sucked in a breath as Dan eased out of him.

“I think this sofa’s been cleaned more since I met you than it has the entire time I’ve owned it.” Dan dropped a kiss to the spot on Fernando’s shoulder where he’d bitten him, then ran gentle fingers over it. “You know, I’d ink you right here.”

Fernando let his eyes fall closed. “Yeah?”

“Hmm. Monochrome to go with your other tattoos. Something geometric, simple lines.” Another kiss to the shoulder. “I think I’d start just here.” He placed his hand just below Fernando’s shoulder blade, then ran it up to his shoulder. “Widen it out up here, then take it down your arm.” His fingers drifted over Fernando’s bicep and down. “Then I’d narrow it down to a point just… here.” He brushed the sensitive skin on the inside of his elbow. Fernando shivered. He was pretty sure that if he hadn’t just come he’d be half-hard right now. He was definitely sure that he would let Dan put whatever he damn well pleased on his skin.

“Is this what you think about when you’re fucking me?” he joked, his laugh coming out a little shaky.

“Sometimes.” Fernando could feel Dan’s smile against his skin.

“Well. Maybe we should do it then.”

~~

Dan glanced at the clock on the wall as he heard the bell ring out in the shop. Four o’clock. Which meant the person who had just come in ought to be Fernando. He quickly swallowed the remains of his coffee and grabbed the folder with his sketches in it just as the receptionist, Caitlin, stuck her head into the room. “Dan,” she sing-songed, stretching out the single syllable to about four. “Your four o’clock’s here”. She flashed him a grin before disappearing back into the shop. He took a deep breath and followed her out.

Fernando was in reception, looking at the photographs of the studio’s work on the walls. He looked up with a smile when Dan approached him. “These are yours,” he said, indicating the section nearest the windows. It wasn’t a question. Dan nodded. “You’re good.”

“Thanks.” Dan was pretty sure he was blushing. Again. “So,” he said, after too long a pause. He knew that if he turned round, Caitlin would be watching them, grinning. “Let’s get started.” He led Fernando to the comfy chairs they used to go over designs and chat with clients. He opened up his folder and forced himself to behave like a professional. “I know we talked about geometric designs, but I know you also like the other stuff I do so I came up with a few things in that style for you to have a look at.” He made the mistake of glancing up at Fernando. “What?”

“Nothing. It’s just good to see you at work. Actually, it’s kinda hot. And you haven’t even done anything to me yet.” He slipped his hand onto Dan’s knee.

“Fernando,” Dan hissed, glancing over at Caitlin, who was fortunately busy on the phone. “I am at work. I’m trying to be professional here.”

“Daniel. You came up with the design for this tattoo while you had your cock up my arse. I think the professional ship has already sailed.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Dan moaned, his face definitely burning red now. “Do you say shit like this to me on purpose?”

“Yeah. You’re cute when you blush.” 

“I hate you.”

“This one,” Fernando said, pulling a page out from the scatter of papers on the table. “I want this one.” It was the one Dan had described to him, the one he had pictured on Fernando’s skin when Fernando’s skin had been hot and flushed and sweaty under his hands. The one he had been hoping he would pick.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Because you were pretty keen on the other stuff until I suggested this.”

“I know.” Fernando picked up one of the images, an ambiguous figure similar to the one on the wall in Dan’s house, with long, ragged hair and something like angel’s wings. “And I still really want it. I’m just not sure where I’d have something like this. So we can save it for another time.” He dropped the sort-of angel and tapped the first design, leaning closer. Dan could feel his breath on his cheek. “You know you want to see this on me.” 

“You can’t get it because of that, Fernando. Jesus. This is going to be on your body forever.”

“I know that. And I want this on my body forever. It’s beautiful, it’s elegant, and it will complement my other tattoos. And it will make me think of you. Of us.”

“Exactly,” Dan said. Fernando pulled back and for several long seconds they just looked at each other.

“This is what I want. And it’s your job, as a professional, to make sure the customer gets what they want. Right?”

“Right.”

“Then give me what I want, Daniel,” Fernando said, his voice low. Dan felt a stirring in his groin and, not for the first time, mentally cursed both himself and Fernando.

“If you’re sure,” he said, gathering up the papers from the table and stuffing them into the file.

“I am.”

“Get in the chair then.” Fernando grinned at him, all bright eyes and dimples. 

“By the way, do your colleagues know about us?” Fernando said as he followed Dan across the room to his workstation.

“Why? Did Caitlin say something? What did she say?”

“She just seemed excessively happy when I told her who I was. She had this look in her eye. Why? What have you told them?”

“Nothing. That’s thing. I hadn’t mentioned you at all, and then I was suddenly asking for time for a private client and they put two and two together. Usually if I do any work on my friends they’ve heard about them beforehand. They’ve been nagging me about you all week. I’m surprised they weren’t all here waiting for you.”

“You hadn’t mentioned me? Dan, I’m hurt,” Fernando pouted.

“It’s none of their business,” Dan muttered. “Sit down and take your shirt off.”

“Again with the sweet talk,” Fernando said with another grin. Dan busied himself at the workstation as Fernando unbuttoned his shirt. Skin was skin, he reminded himself, a body was just a body. Fernando was no different from any other client. 

He could feel Fernando’s eyes on him as he cleaned and shaved his arm and shoulder. The familiarity of the routine settled him down a little. It really was just skin, albeit skin that was regularly pressed against his own, hot and slick. “How are you with the pain?” he asked, keeping his voice low. There was a curtain around his workstation for privacy, but it did nothing to cancel sound. “You’re not one of those who gets off on it, are you?”

“What if I am?”

“Fernando,” Dan warned. “Behave.”

“I don’t mind the pain one way or the other. Happy now?”

“Thank you.”

“What made you ask?”

“It’s my job to ask.”

“Really? You ask all your clients if they get off on the pain? You phrase it just like that?”

“Earlier you said seeing me at work was really hot ‘even though I hadn’t done anything to you yet’.”

“Ah. Well, that’s not so much the pain, that’s more the whole process. Not that getting any of my other tattoos turned me on. But none of my other tattoo artists were you. So who knows what’s going to happen. Like this, for example. This feels pretty nice,” he said as Dan smoothed on the cream for the stencil.

“For god’s sake.”

“You brought it up, not me.”

“And I regret it already,” Dan said, lining up the stencils on Fernando’s arm. He’d had to do it in sections because of the way it curved over his shoulder. “Does that position look right to you?”

“Dan, honestly. Whatever you think works best. I trust you.” Fernando glanced over his shoulder with a small frown. “Did you already have the stencil made up?”

“This is the design we discussed. No harm in being prepared.”

“I suppose if I had changed my mind you could have just used it for someone else.”

“No. I designed this for you.”

“Oh.” 

It was blessedly quiet while Dan pulled on his gloves and prepared his ink and needles. It was just his luck really to end up with a guy who was only talkative when he was winding people up. He pushed gently at Fernando’s shoulder to get him to sit forward and give Dan access to his back. Then he pressed the pedal to turn the machine on. “Last chance to change your mind,” he said as always. “You’re sure you’re happy with the design and the position.”

“Yes. Get on with it.”

“Okay then,” Dan said, and pressed the needle to Fernando’s skin.

There was something very intimate about getting and giving a tattoo, even when it wasn’t someone you were sleeping with. It wasn’t just the close contact or the time, sometimes hours, spent together. There was a lot of trust involved. You were permanently altering someone’s body; it wasn’t a little thing. Often people were scared and Dan had to talk them down. Tattoos could be deeply personal and cathartic and liberating. People talked to him about things they wouldn’t normally talk about. He’d had quite a few people cry on him, and not only because of the pain. He was part artist, part therapist.

And then there were people like Fernando, who was sitting in the chair as quietly and calmly as if he were getting a haircut while Dan stuck needles into his skin a hundred times a second.

“I got my first on a bit of a whim,” Fernando said after a while, running a finger over the lettering on his left forearm.

“A lot of people do. Well, they say they do. Usually it’s more like, they’ve been thinking about it on and off for years and then one day they suddenly go ‘right, I’m doing it’. And then they do it.”

“That sounds about right.”

“It’s Elvish, right?”

“Tengwar.”

Dan lifted the needle away from Fernando’s shoulder so he could look at him properly. “What?”

“It’s called Tengwar. There is more than one form of Elvish. This is Tengwar.” The defiant line of Fernando’s mouth was only slightly undermined by the pink tinge in his cheeks. Dan bit his lip.

“You fucking nerd.”

“Well, you recognised it was Elvish so you’re just as much of a nerd as I am.”

“No, not just as much.” Dan went back to carefully following the precise lines of the stencil. “What does it say anyway?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“It’s your ex’s name isn’t it? No shame in that. Half our business is covering up ex-related tattoos.” 

“It’s not my ex’s name.”

“Aragorn’s name?”

“Dan, no.”

“Viggo Mortensen’s name? You have a thing for Danes?”

“No.” Fernando fiddled with the seam of his jeans. “It’s my name.” Dan had to take the needle away again and turn it off, this time so his laughter wouldn’t make his hand slip. “Oh, shut up.”

“You got your own name tattooed? Were you worried you might forget it?” Dan laughed harder as Fernando swatted at his arm and missed. 

“Look, I wanted something in Tengwar and I didn’t know what to get. It seemed like the simplest thing.”

“And here I was thinking it was something deep and meaningful that was important to you.”

“I am important to me.”

“That’s true I suppose.” Dan turned the gun back on and went back to work, wiping away some extraneous ink so he could see what he was doing. Fernando winced. Only slightly, but Dan had become attuned to people’s pain responses over the years. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just a little sensitive there.”

“Mm-hmm.” Dan was well aware of this fact.

“Just try to remember you can’t bite me there until it’s healed.” And they were back to sex again. That hadn’t taken long.

“I’ll do my best to remember that. You know, in case the bright red skin and my years of professional training and experience don’t tell me.”

“Well, I know what you’re like. Can’t keep your hands to yourself. Or your mouth.”

“It’s not my fault you have nice shoulders.”

“They’ll be even nicer once you’re done. Well, one of them will.”

“I’ll never be able to leave you alone.”

They fell quiet while Dan worked over the rise of Fernando’s shoulder and started on his arm. “What’s with the nine?” Dan asked, nodding at his wrist.

“It’s not actually a nine. It’s the Klingon symbol for soul. It just happens to look like the figure nine.” Dan stopped his work again and stared at him. After about ten seconds Fernando’s lips started to twitch and he burst out laughing.

“Why are you like this?” Dan said.

“Your face,” Fernando said. “You should have seen it.”

“Elvish is one thing, but I draw the line at Klingon.”

“It’s not Klingon, I promise. It’s just a nine. It’s my lucky number.” He stopped laughing, but his eyes were still shining, his cheeks dimpling, and Dan wanted nothing more than to kiss him. Fernando’s smile softened and he propped his elbow on the arm of the chair, leaning in close. Dan tightened his grip on the tattoo gun and pressed the pedal again to turn it off. “So, are you saying that if it had been Klingon, then that would have been it for us?”

“Yep, that’s what I’m saying.”

“If I were a Trekkie, you wouldn’t want me?” His voice was soft, his face inches away from Dan’s. He reached up and ran a finger over the shell of his ear, then down over the sensitive skin behind it. Dan let out a breath.

“No. I wouldn’t want you.” He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Fernando’s mouth.

“Well. Lucky for me I’m not then, isn’t it?” He wrapped a gentle hand around the back of Dan’s neck and pulled him forward, pressing his mouth to Dan’s. Their lips moved together, soft and languid, and Dan felt something tug in his chest.

“Ahem.” At the sound of Caitlin’s voice, Dan sprang backwards. He could feel his cheeks burning as he turned to face her. The barely suppressed amusement on her face did not help. “I’m done for the day, I’m leaving early to go to the dentist. They keys are on my desk, don’t forget to lock up. And behave yourself,” she added, casting a glance at Fernando. Then she winked at him and stalked back out through the curtains and into the shop. He waited until he heard the bell ring as she left, then he turned to Fernando.

“Sorry,” Fernando said. “Did I get you into trouble?”

“No, it’s fine.” He maneuvered Fernando back into position so he could continue with the tattoo. “I’ll just never hear the end of it.” He turned the gun back on, lifted the needle back to Fernando’s arm, and focused his attention on the marks on his skin instead of the way that Fernando’s gaze was fixed on him.

“I really am sorry. I forgot she was here.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He turned Fernando’s arm slightly so he could begin to curve the pattern around his bicep towards his inner arm.

“Dan,” Fernando said quietly after a few minutes. “Are you mad at me?”

“No.”

“It seems like you are.”

“I’m not.”

“Then why won’t you talk to me? Or look at me?”

“I need to concentrate. I want to get this finished.” He flicked a look up at Fernando, just long enough to take in the pinched lips and furrowed brow, then continued. “So we can get out of here.”

“Oh.” Dan stopped to turn Fernando’s arm again and took another look at him. The frown had gone and he was watching Dan with serious, dark eyes. Dan dropped his gaze again and continued with his work, and this time he didn’t stop until he was lifting the needle away from Fernando’s inner elbow for the last time.

“You okay?” he asked as he began dismantling his equipment for cleaning. He had been aware of Fernando tensing up over the last few minutes, his breathing becoming a little more laboured, but he hadn’t asked him to stop.

“Yeah. That last part was bad, but I knew it was going to be.” He was studying his arm, twisting it around and craning his head.

“You know you can’t actually see your own back, don’t you? Mirror’s over there.” He pointed to the wall behind Fernando’s chair. He kept his head down and concentrated on his usual routine of organising his workstation and preparing everything to be sterilised. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Fernando twisting in front of the mirror. “Happy?”

“Very. It looks great.”

“Good. Sit back down and we’ll get it covered up.” He pointed to the chair and Fernando sat back down, beaming. 

“Seriously, thank you.” Fernando stretched up to kiss Dan quickly on the lips. “I love it.”

“You’re very welcome. Now, I know you probably know all this,” he said as he wrapped Fernando’s arm up, “but I need to go through aftercare with you.” Fernando nodded.

“I know. You’re a professional. You’ve made that clear.” Dan rolled his eyes and reeled off the usual spiel, then peeled off his gloves and handed him the written instructions which Fernando dutifully folded up and slipped into his pocket.

“Now, out of my chair and get your shirt on. I need to clean up.” He gathered everything up and carried it out to the autoclave. When he came back, Fernando had one arm in his shirt and was gingerly trying to pull the other sleeve on. “You should probably have started with the other arm.”

“Thanks. I realised that already.” Dan shook his head and went to help him with his shirt. “You okay now? Can you manage your jacket by yourself?” Fernando shot him a glare and Dan went to clean the chair. He had just finished spraying the disinfectant when a warm chest pressed against his back and a hand snaked round to the front of his jeans.

“What are you doing?” he said, forcing himself to pick up the paper towels and start wiping down the chair.

“What do you think I’m doing?”

“Fernando.”

“Does tattooing people always turn you on like this? Or is it just when it’s me?”

“Neither.”

“Really? Then why is your cock hard?”

“Because you’re fucking stroking it.” He took hold of Fernando’s wrist and pulled his hand away. “Fernando, I’m serious. We can’t do this here.”

“We have the place to ourselves.”

“That’s not the point. There are rules. Laws. You know, about hygiene and cleanliness and all that? You should know that. I could lose my job. This place could get shut down. We can’t fuck in the goddamn chair.” No matter how appealing the thought may be. He finished his cleaning and threw the towels in the bin.

“Oh. Yeah. Didn’t think about that.” Fernando’s sheepish expression twisted and turned into a wicked smile. “So why are we still here?” He took hold of Dan’s wrist and pulled him towards the door and it was all that Dan could do to extricate himself enough to set the alarm and lock up. His jacket was still in the staff room but it was hard to care about that when Fernando’s arm was around his waist again, his fingers teasing at the fly of his jeans. He could get his jacket tomorrow. 

Retrieving his bike from the alleyway beside the shop was a severe test of his self-control.

“There are cameras, you know,” he panted into Fernando’s mouth, groaning as their hips ground together.

“Kinky,” Fernando said with a grin, and Dan let his head fall back against the wall Fernando had him pressed against.

“You need to be careful of your arm,” Dan tried. Fernando shook his head.

“I have two arms,” he said, and went back to nibbling at Dan’s throat.

“Fernando, please. I work here.” Something in his voice must have got through because Fernando stopped and lifted his head.

“You’re right. Sorry.” He stepped away and Dan immediately regretted saying anything at all. Fernando laced his fingers through Dan’s. “Come on. Let’s get your bike in the van.” 

They had been driving for about twenty minutes — Fernando, it turned out, was a very impatient and scary driver — when Dan realised they were going the wrong way. “Where are we going?” Fernando just flashed him a grin and kept driving. Dan wasn’t sure where they were but one bit of countryside looked much the same as another. There were no other cars on the road. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“Yes, we are.”

“Are you a serial killer? Has this whole thing been a ruse so you could get me out of the house?”

“Is that really the only reason you can think of for why I would want to get you alone?” Fernando said, pulling into the gateway of a farmer’s field. It was partially shielded from the road by a copse of trees. 

“I—” Dan was cut off by Fernando’s mouth. There was a moment of fumbling, the click of Fernando’s seatbelt, and then Fernando was climbing out of the driver’s seat and straddling Dan’s lap. Dan slipped his hands under Fernando’s shirt and ran them over his back, over the shifting muscle and the notches of his spine.

“Your place is too far away,” Fernando said when they paused for breath. “Mine too.” Another kiss, Fernando’s tongue sweeping against Dan’s lip. “So I took a detour.” And another, this time sucking Dan’s lower lip into his mouth. “I can stop if you want.”

“No you can’t,” Dan breathed. He undid his seatbelt so he could grind his hips up against Fernando.

“No, I can’t,” Fernando agreed, the last word almost lost as his mouth was on Dan’s again. One hand was curled in the fabric of Dan’s t-shirt, the other tugging at the zip on his jeans, and he slipped his hand into Dan’s underwear at he same time he slipped his tongue into his mouth. Dan’s guttural moan filled the van and he bucked up against Fernando’s hand. “God, I love the sounds you make, have I told you that?” He let go of Dan’s t-shirt to unfasten his own jeans and Dan slid his hands down to cup his arse. “You sound as good as you feel.”

“And you talk too much, have I told you that?”

Fernando shook his head. “No, you love it,” he said against Dan’s mouth. Dan slid one hand round to take hold of Fernando’s cock, smiling when his head tipped back and he let out a string of Spanish curses.

“Maybe I do,” he admitted, pulling him into another kiss.

They pressed against each other in the awkward space, elbows knocking into the door and the handbrake, hips rocking together as they worked each other’s cocks. Fernando’s free hand roamed feverishly over Dan’s chest and shoulder, up over his neck to cup his jaw, and he dragged his lips over Dan’s mouth and cheeks as he murmured his name over and over. Dan could feel the pressure building low in his belly already and pulled Fernando against him as tightly as he could, his arm wrapped around Fernando’s back and Fernando’s chest hot through two layers of cotton; he needed to get closer, couldn’t get close enough as they moved against each other. Fernando’s grip on Dan’s cock tightened, the hand on his neck almost painful as he tensed and went suddenly silent, his head dropping to rest against Dan’s as he came over his hand. Dan buried his face in Fernando’s hair as his own orgasm shook him, and he pulled Fernando to him.

They stayed like that for several minutes, just breathing together, and Dan was struck by the urge to say something incredibly stupid. He squashed it down and just let himself enjoy the feeling of Fernando absentmindedly playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. Dan moved first when he realised he was losing feeling in his leg. “I was comfy,” Fernando protested, not moving from Dan’s lap and trailing kisses up his jaw.

“I’m not. My leg’s going numb.”

Fernando shifted his weight a little. “Better?” Dan nodded. “Good.” He resumed his exploration of Dan’s jaw and glanced his nails over the back of Dan’s neck. Dan’s heart rate, which had begun to return to normal, picked up again and he let his head fall back against the seat.

“You know there’s a perfectly good bed at my house.”

“Mmm, too far away.”

“Do you intend to stay here indefinitely?” His breath caught as Fernando licked a line up his throat to his chin.

“Not indefinitely,” Fernando said with a smile. “Just until I’ve made you come again.”

Dan groaned. “You’re insatiable.”

“I know,” Fernando murmured as his lips found Dan’s again.

Dan saw no reason to argue further.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They were supposed to have a serious conversation about their tattoos and what they mean to them, but all they want to do is bicker and have sex so that didn't happen. I think I only have two, maybe three chapters to go until I finish this. The end is in sight!
> 
> Fernando's new tattoo looks something like [this](http://editorial.designtaxi.com/news-geometric13022015/1.jpg), only it starts lower on his back and finishes at the crook of his elbow.
> 
> Next chapter: Fernando's friends introduce themselves to Dan.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the penultimate chapter, folks. The end is nigh!

Dan opened the front door to find a blue-eyed, curly-haired man standing on his doorstep looking apologetic. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Juan.”

“Yeah, Fernando said—” Dan cut himself off as he spotted two more people clambering out of a van very similar to Fernando’s.

“They insisted on, um, helping me. Sorry.” The two bounded down the path to stand behind Juan. “The bald one’s Pepe. The other’s Cesc.” Dan, who had surmised as much, nodded. Pepe grinned at him then reached out to clip Juan around the back of the head.

“’The bald one’ keeps you in gainful employment so you don’t starve in the streets like the dog that you are, Mata. I wish you people would remember that.”

“You do know I’m keeping note of all these acts of physical and verbal abuse for when I take you to an industrial tribunal, don’t you?” 

“You’d better come in,” Dan said, one eye on the twitching curtains of number twenty seven across the street. She was convinced that Dan’s tattoos meant he was a drug dealer and that everyone who came to his house was a criminal. If she saw three men scuffling on his doorstep she’d probably call the police.

“Thanks, man,” Cesc said as they streamed past him and filtered into the living room.

“Sorry to drop in on you like this, but someone has to keep an eye on him, you know?” Pepe said with another infectious grin. Juan rolled his eyes and shook his head, but there was an affectionate smile playing around his mouth.

“Alright, the sooner I can get on with this the sooner we can leave Dan in peace,” Juan announced to the room at large. “Fernando said you have a ceiling problem?”

“It’s not really a problem as such. It’s just a mess,” Dan said as he led Juan up the stairs. Cesc and Pepe followed them, bickering in Spanish.

“Wow,” Juan said as they reached the top of the stairs. “Fernando wasn’t kidding.” He was staring at the wall on the landing. Behind him, Cesc and Pepe clattered to a halt, also staring. 

“Cool,” Cesc said.

Pepe whistled. “Not bad.”

“Thanks for your input, Brian Sewell,” Juan muttered, bending down to peer more closely at the wall, much as Fernando had done. “Dan, this is amazing.”

“Thanks,” Dan said, his cheeks glowing. “What did you mean ‘Fernando wasn’t kidding’?”

“Just, you know, he mentioned that your work was good.”

Pepe and Cesc let out identical snorts. “Mentioned it? He raved about it,” Pepe said.

“Oh.” Dan didn’t know where to look.

“It’s like if Hieronymus Bosch and Salvador Dali had a baby, and that baby had a happy life and decided to paint things that weren’t utterly terrifying.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I was going to say.”

“Shut up, Cesc.” Juan glanced up and apparently saw how uncomfortable they were making Dan. He straightened up. “So, where’s this messy ceiling, then?” Dan led him through to his bedroom, which was cleaner than it had been in years. He’d even vacuumed. No matter how much he’d told himself it was stupid, he hadn’t wanted Fernando’s friend coming round and thinking he was a slob, even though Fernando didn’t care. Juan squinted up at the ceiling, which was so full of bumps and bubbles it looked like boiling paint.

“What the hell happened?”

“A storm damaged the roof a couple of years ago and it was leaking. When the guy came to fix it he went up into the loft to check the damage and fell through the ceiling.”

“And that’s how they mended it?” Juan’s expression suggested he was looking at one of those Channel Five programmes about surgeries that have gone horribly wrong rather than a ceiling with some lumps in it.

“I guess he was a roof person not a ceiling person,” Dan shrugged. “It doesn’t really bother me, I’ve got used to it. But every time Fernando sees it he complains and says you would be horrified, and to be honest he’s driving me mad. I told him he had to either shut up about it or sort it out.”

“I’m going to have to strip all of that out and re-do it. I can do it in a day, but it’s going to be messy. I’ll try to keep the dust to a minimum but you might want to sleep somewhere else tonight.”

Dan nodded. “I can do that.”

“I bet you can,” Pepe said with a wink, sticking his head around the door. Dan, who had been intending to commandeer Nick’s spare room, felt his cheeks heat up again. Cesc wandered into the bedroom, saving him from having to come up with an answer to Pepe’s knowing grin.

“Do you know that none of your doors are straight?” he said.

“Really? No, I never noticed. Fernando didn’t say anything.”

“He probably didn’t notice either. I know he likes to pretend otherwise, but he doesn’t actually know everything.”

“Is that why most of the doors either don’t open properly or don’t shut?” Dan said. 

“Yup. I can fix that for you if you want, it shouldn’t take long. Take the doors off, plane them if they need it, hang them again with the hinges actually in the right places. Juan should have everything I’ll need in his van.”

“Thanks, that’d be great.” 

“I’d offer to re-wire your house,” Pepe piped up. “But I don’t work for free, not even for Fernando.”

“Plus, he hasn’t done any actual work for about a decade so he’d probably end up setting something on fire,” Juan said.

“Yeah, he works in a supervisory capacity now,” Cesc said, making little air quotes with his fingers when he said ‘supervisory’. 

“That’s the thing with working with children, you have to watch them at all times,” Pepe said. “Besides, I really only came to nosy at Fernando’s boyfriend.” 

“I’m not— we’re not— It’s just casual,” Dan stuttered. 

“Riiiiight,” Pepe said.

“Yeah, that’s what he thinks too,” Cesc said. “It’s cute.”

“Will you two leave the poor man alone?” Juan said, folding his arms. “You’re not even supposed to be here. Cesc, go and get the stuff from the van. Pepe, do something useful and put the kettle on.” Expecting further argument, Dan was surprised when the other two left the room without a word. “Sorry about them. They mean well. I didn’t want them to come but, well, they’re kind of hard to say no to.”

“It’s fine, I get it,” Dan said. Something about Juan’s kind smile and understanding eyes was throwing him off worse than all Pepe’s teasing. “Look, I’ve got work to do so I’m just going to go downstairs and, you know, do that.”

Downstairs, Dan retrieved his sketchpad from the kitchen table, accepted the coffee Pepe offered him, and took up his usual working position stretched out on the living room floor. Pepe appeared a minute later carrying three steaming mugs and almost collided with Cesc who was coming through the front door with a pile of dust sheets in his arms. “For fuck’s sake, Cescito,” Pepe exclaimed, followed by a stream of Spanish. Dan noted with a little burst of pride that he actually recognised a couple of the words that weren’t swear words. The two of them argued all the way up the stairs. Dan pulled out his phone and tapped out a message to Fernando.

_i like your friends._

The reply came after about a minute. _yeah juan’s a great guy_. Followed almost immediately by, _wait, friends plural??_

 _cesc and pepe are here too_. There was no response to this, but the Mission Impossible theme tune drifted down from upstairs, followed by a loud cackle. The music cut off and then Pepe’s voice boomed through the house.

“Oh, hi Fernando.” There was a pause and then, “but I just wanted to help.” Another pause. “Of course I have. We’re your friends, we need to check these things. He seems really nice. Far too good for you, if anything.” Dan couldn’t work out what was wrong with this conversation, besides the volume, then he realised that it was being conducted in English. “Don’t you think you’re being a bit of a drama queen about this? What? No—” and then Pepe switched to Spanish. A few minutes later he was standing dejectedly at the bottom of the stairs. “I’ve being kicked out. Cesc is allowed to stay on the grounds that he’s actually being helpful and not just a prick, whereas I’m, well, apparently I’m a lot of things, most of which don’t really translate very well into English.”

“You know, this is my home. I get to say who stays and goes. I don’t mind you being here.”

“Nah, it’s not worth the headache he’ll give me. I really only came because I was curious, and because I knew it would wind him up. I’ve satisfied both those things now.” He held out his hand and Dan shook it. “Pleasure to meet you, Dan. I think you’ll do very well for our Fernando.”

“Thanks. You too.”

“Listen. I love Fernando like my own family. He’s a great guy. The best, really. But he can be a bit… you know. Just don’t let him give you any of his shit, okay?” With that, Pepe clapped him on the shoulder and disappeared through the front door. Dan shook his head and went back to work.

As usual when sketching, Dan was oblivious to the world around him, completely absorbed by the images in his head materialising on the paper in front of him. He was dimly aware of figures passing by him occasionally, but he paid them no mind and they didn’t interrupt him. Even Cesc removing the kitchen door and then putting it back again only briefly made it through to his consciousness. It was about three hours later that he swam up from the depths and put down his pencil, stretching to work the kinks out of his back. There was a message waiting on his phone that he hadn’t heard. _sorry about those two. I didn’t know they were going to show up_.

He stood and made his way to the kitchen for more coffee, typing a reply as he went, then stopped dead in the doorway. Juan was leaning against the counter, hemmed in by Cesc who had one hand on Juan’s hip and was wiping away a smear of plaster dust on Juan’s cheek with the other. Juan’s hands rested on the small of Cesc’s back, and there wasn’t a glimmer of daylight between them. Juan’s eyes were fixed on Cesc like he was the only person in the world, but he must have caught Dan’s movement because he pushed gently at Cesc’s chest and turned to Dan, scuppering his plan to just quietly leave without interrupting. “Sorry,” Dan said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“No, we shouldn’t have— sorry,” Juan said. “This is your kitchen.”

“Well, I just wanted to…” Dan indicated the kettle.

“Right, yeah,” Cesc said, moving away. 

“Sorry for interrupting,” Dan said as he filled the kettle, his phone abandoned on the counter. “I didn’t even know you two were together. Fernando never mentioned it.”

“Yeah, about that. Fernando doesn’t actually know. No-one does,” Cesc said.

“Oh.”

Juan smiled and took Cesc’s hand. “We’ve been friends for ages, all of us have, and then a few months ago we kind of slept together when we were drunk. We dismissed it but then it happened again, and again, and we had to admit that maybe it wasn’t a drunk thing, maybe it was… something. But we don’t know what it is yet, and until we figure it out we don’t want the others to know, especially Fernando. It will just make things difficult. I know this puts you in a bit of an awkward position, but could you please not say anything?”

“Sure, of course not. Your relationship is your business.”

“Thanks,” Juan said with a relieved smile. “I’m really sorry to dump this on you, we don’t even know each other.”

Dan shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. Why ‘especially Fernando’? Why is it so important that he doesn’t know?”

Cesc and Juan exchanged glances. “I have kind of a reputation,” Cesc said.

“He’s a slut,” Juan put in.

“Yeah. I’ve never been great with the whole relationship thing. But I’m trying this time. I want to try. The thing is, Fernando’s kinda weird about Juan.” 

“Weird how?”

“Protective, you know?” Juan said.

“Weirdly over-protective,” Cesc said. “Any time Juan even looks like he might be getting into a relationship he turns into this total mother hen. I can do without that, to be honest.”

“Yeah. And Fer and I are close and he’s going to be hurt that I didn’t tell him,” Juan said, casting a small frown at Cesc. “We need to handle it carefully.”

“You don’t need to worry. I won’t say anything.” 

“Thanks. We really appreciate it,” Juan said. Cesc nodded. 

Dan waved his mug at the other two as the kettle started to boil. “You want anything?” The both shook their heads so Dan just made his own coffee. “So, you guys all go way back, right? Fernando said you all knew each other back home.”

“Yeah, we all worked for the same company,” Juan said. “Then Pepe left for England because his wife got offered a job here and Fernando left to set up by himself. Cesc got fired and kicked out of his apartment in the same week and spent a few weeks sleeping on Fernando’s sofa until Pepe offered him a job because he was expanding his business. Fernando’s company went bust and he couldn’t get any more work so Pepe offered him a job too. And I was miserable because my boss was a prick and I’d split up with my boyfriend, so Fernando said I should come here. So I did. And here we all are.”

“Basically, without Pepe we’d all be screwed,” Cesc said.

“Yeah,” Juan said. “But don’t you dare tell him we said that.”

“You’re secret’s safe with me.” Dan sipped his drink. “So, you came here because Fernando asked you to?”

“He didn’t ask me exactly, more like suggested it,” Juan said, his eyebrows furrowing. “But yeah, he probably had more to do with me moving than anyone else.”

“You ever think about going back?”

“Sure,” Juan said with a shrug. “I’ll probably go back eventually, I can’t imagine staying here forever. But I’m happy here for now.”

Cesc nodded. “Same.”

“What about you? Ever think about going back to Denmark?”

Dan wrinkled his nose. “Not really. I miss my family, and it’s nice to go back sometimes. But I’ve been here a long time. This is my home now.”

“Pepe says the same,” Cesc said. “I don’t get it. You know, I like it here. I love it here. But I don’t get it.” Juan nodded beside him.

“Fernando mentioned that he had been thinking about going back,” Dan said as casually as he could. Cesc and Juan exchanged glances, like they knew that was what he had been working up to asking all along.

“He seems to have given up on that, I think,” Juan said. “Something must have changed his mind.” Now that Dan thought about it, it had been a while since Fernando mentioned it.

“He does this occasionally. If he feels restless or aimless he changes something to make himself feel better, like he’s doing something productive,” Cesc said.

“Doesn’t everyone do that?” Dan asked.

“Yeah, but most people cut their hair or redecorate their house or something. Maybe get a new job. They don’t change cities or countries.” 

“But Fernando does?”

“Yeah,” Juan said, and the sympathy in his voice set Dan’s nerves jangling. “He’s done it a couple of times.”

“And this from a guy who once accused me of not being able to commit to a goldfish, let alone a relationship or a career,” Cesc said with a snort. “Like he’s got room to talk.” Juan elbowed him in the ribs with a pointed glare. “What? Oh. Sorry.”

“Well, goldfish are surprisingly hard to look after. You know what? I think I’m going to go for a run,” Dan said. He put his mug down on the counter, sloshing coffee over the rim, and moved over to the back door. “Haven’t been for a couple of days,” he said as he tugged on his trainers, ignoring the fact that he was in no way dressed for running. Juan just watched him a little worriedly; Cesc stepped forward.

“Dan, he’s not going anywhere.”

“Doesn’t matter if he does,” Dan said with a shrug, fumbling with his laces. “We have a lot of fun and a lot of sex, but that’s it.” 

“Of course. It’s just casual, you mentioned that. You’ve both mentioned that. Quite a lot.”

“Exactly, yeah,” Dan said, standing up. “We’re both free to come and go as we like. So, I’m going to do that now,” he said with an awkward wave at the door. Juan and Cesc just nodded like they were humouring a child, and Dan headed out into the chilly afternoon.

He got back about an hour later, sweaty and aching, his clothes clinging uncomfortably, and bottoms of his jeans stiff with mud. He needed a shower and some food, in that order. Fortunately for him, he didn’t have to go far for either. He didn’t know why someone would install the smallest wet room in the world in the space under the stairs where most people had a cupboard or, at most, a downstairs toilet, but someone at some stage had done so. It was a completely mental thing to do in a one-bedroom house that already had a shower in it, but it did prove useful when he didn’t want to track dirt through the house.

He left his clothes in a heap in the kitchen and slipped into the room, if it could even be called that. It was little bigger than the average shower cubicle, and the steep slope of the ceiling meant anyone taller than about four foot could only stand upright at one side of it. The water was nice and hot, though, and soothed his aching muscles nicely.

He was just rinsing the shampoo out of his hair when he thought he heard footsteps in the kitchen. He froze with his hands on his head, then turned towards the door, smacking his elbow on the ceiling as he did so. He swore loudly.

“Dan?” Fernando’s voice came from the other side of the door. “Is that you?”

“Who else would it be?”

“You could have been Juan. Maybe you let him borrow your shower, I don’t know.” Over the pattering of the water, Dan heard the sound of trainers dropping on the floor.

“What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to check on the three stooges. And I’ve been texting you and you haven’t been answering.” Even without seeing him, Dan could tell Fernando was pouting. 

“I was working and then I went out for a run. And it’s two stooges. You kicked one of them out, remember?”

“Right.” There was a pause and then the door opened and Fernando stood naked in front of him. That little half-smile of his was tugging at his lips, begging to be kissed. He stepped inside and shut the door behind him, leaning awkwardly to the side to avoid banging his head.

“I really don’t think there’s enough space in here for two,” Dan said regretfully.

“That sounds like a challenge, Daniel.” Fernando shuffled around until he could stand properly. They were only a few centimetres apart, their hardening cocks a hair’s breadth from brushing against each other. “See. We both fit. We just need to stay very close together.” 

“That sounds terrible, I don’t think I want to do that.”

“Liar,” Fernando said with a smile. He pressed himself up against Dan and kissed him, his mouth open and hungry, then pushed him back against the wall. Dan hissed and arched away from the cold tiles, pressing himself even closer to Fernando.

“You know, I discovered something about myself today,” Dan said as Fernando moved his mouth down to his neck and slipped a thigh between Dan’s legs.

“Hmmm?”

“You know most of the time I only hear you speak Spanish when we’re having sex?”

“ _Si_.”

“Well, apparently I have a sort of Pavlovian response to Spanish now.” Fernando lifted his head to look at him, a grin breaking across his face. The shower spray was hitting the back of his head so that rivulets of water ran over his neck and chest and damp tendrils hung in his face. Dan reached up to brush them away.

“Are you saying that Spanish turns you on? Not even just in bed? Have my friends been making you horny?”

“Not exactly,” Dan said, his hand cupping the back of Fernando’s head now and his other hand sliding down Fernando’s stomach. “But it does make me think of you and…” he took hold of Fernando’s cock and smoothed his hand down the shaft, watching as Fernando’s eyelids fluttered. “…that.”

Fernando let out a breathless laugh, then ducked his head. His lips brushed Dan’s ear as he spoke. Dan had no idea what he was saying — it could have been his shopping list for all Dan knew, though he thought he caught ‘fuck’ and ‘hard’ in there so maybe not — but Fernando’s soft, low voice dirty in his ear was what Dan had been longing for all day. He worked his hand slowly over Fernando’s cock. “Daniel,” Fernando breathed, and god did that sound good, all the stress on the final syllable and Fernando’s voice catching at the end. Dan’s hips rocked forward against Fernando’s thigh. “Dan, where are the condoms?”

“Upstairs,” Dan answered with a groan. They had worked their way through all the ones he had stashed downstairs.

Fernando shook his head with a smile. “Hopeless. No matter, we will just do some of the other things I was telling you about.”

“I don’t understand the things you were telling me about, genius.”

“That’s a tragedy for you. You really need to learn Spanish so that you know all the things I want to do to you. I guess it will just have to be a surprise.” He brushed his lips against Dan’s, then sank to his knees.

“I hate to tell you this, but your obsession with sucking me off isn’t actually a surprise.”

“Hush.” He closed his eyes and pressed his lips to Dan’s abdomen, then took Dan in his mouth. Dan could see the movement of his arm as he palmed himself, though he couldn’t actually see what he was doing. Dan groaned and let his head fall back, his hands finding Fernando’s hair automatically. He shivered against the tiles, though the room was warm even out of the spray of the water, and smiled at the little hums Fernando gave when Dan tugged gently on his hair. 

“God, why is every single thing you do with your mouth so damn good?” Fernando opened his eyes and winked at him. Water poured over him, washing over his back and shoulders. His tattoo had healed nicely, just as Dan had pictured it; clean black lines against pale skin, beautiful and simple and complex and twisting, like Dan’s feelings had embedded themselves in Fernando’s skin; like no matter what, no matter where Fernando went, this thing between them would be etched on him forever. He tightened his fingers in Fernando’s hair and pulled him off and up. Fernando staggered and almost slipped, but Dan stepped into him and wrapped his arms around him, crushing their mouths together. Water poured down on them both, into their eyes and mouths; Dan couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, but he couldn’t stop either.

“Dan, Dan,” Fernando gasped when Dan finally had to pull away. “Dan, what—” He was cut off by Dan’s mouth, gentle this time.

“Turn around.” He pushed at Fernando’s shoulder to guide him around and Fernando turned easily, suddenly quiet and compliant, any trace of teasing and control gone. Fernando leaned forward and braced himself against the wall as Dan pressed himself against his back, his cock hard against the base of Fernando’s spine, sliding between his cheeks. He traced his fingers over Fernando’s shoulder, where he had inked him weeks before, then followed with his mouth. Fernando raised his arms slightly and leaned closer to the wall so he was braced on his forearms instead of his hands, making the whole of the tattoo visible. Dan huffed against his skin. “You know me too well,” he murmured as Fernando arched his back, pushing harder against Dan’s cock. 

“Nothing wrong with admiring your own work.”

“Admiring you,” Dan said, nudging the outside of Fernando’s ankle to push his legs closer together. He had to crouch a little awkwardly to get his cock between Fernando’s thighs, but the water from the shower provided just enough lubrication for him to slide in easily. He rocked his hips until he found the angle he was looking for, Fernando shuddering against him when his cock slid along his perineum and pressed against his balls as he thrust forward. He was uncharacteristically quiet, biting his lip and making soft, constricted sounds at the back of his throat that Dan could hardly hear over the water falling around them. He thrust harder and grazed his teeth over Fernando’s shoulder, dropping his hand to skim down his cock, and was rewarded with Fernando’s mouth falling open with a moan.

“Dan, please, please.” Dan tightened his hand and sped up both it and his hips as he pressed Fernando flat against the wall. He ran his free hand up Fernando’s arm to where his wrists were now crossed above his head. There was barely any room to work Fernando’s cock, and Dan’s knuckles scraped against the tiles, his movements restricted and clumsy. Fernando’s body was tense against him, every muscle taut with his impending release, his thigh muscles clenching around Dan's cock. Fernando’s head dropped forward, then he gave a grunt and a sigh and went limp so abruptly that if Dan hadn’t had him pinned to the wall he would have fallen. He leaned his head back against Dan’s shoulder with another groan and he pressed his thighs together as Dan thrust harder, the pressure building almost unbearably. “Come for me Daniel, come on. Want to hear you.” He lowered one of his hands from the wall and reached around Dan’s back, running it down over his arse. His fingers brushed the crack. “Come for me.” Dan screwed his eyes shut and bit down on Fernando’s shoulder as the dam broke and pleasure rushed through him. They both sagged against the wall, Dan still pinning Fernando in place.

“Fuck, Fernando,” Dan groaned.

“I don’t know why you’re saying that like I did anything. That was all you.” Fernando twisted with some difficulty to place a kiss on Dan’s neck, then rubbed at his shoulder. “See, I said you wouldn’t be able to keep from biting me once it was healed.”

“I never denied it. In fact, I seem to remember—” Dan was cut off by the shower sputtering and the water abruptly turning ice cold. Fernando yelped and tried to leap out of the way of the water, cracking his head on the sloped ceiling as he did so. Dan, more used to the vagaries of his house, fumbled for the tap to shut it off. “Are you alright?” he asked when the flow had been reduced to its perpetual drip. Fernando was still clutching his head and wincing, and Dan thought his eyes might be watering.

“Ow.” Dan cupped Fernando’s head and ran his hand over the spot where he was rubbing it; he could feel a bump already forming. “Your house really knows how to kill the mood.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“I don’t have a concussion, Dan.”

“How many?”

“As many as you’re going to stick up my arse later.” Dan gave up. They were both shivering now and Dan pulled some towels down from the shelf above the door, which was the only place in the room they wouldn’t get wet.

“Hey, you know where’s nice and warm?” Dan said as they finished drying and wrapped the towels around their waists.

“Where?”

“My bed.”

Fernando grinned and pulled him into a kiss. “Come on then.”

They ran upstairs, towels slipping as they went, and it was only when they burst mostly naked into Dan’s bedroom that Dan suddenly remembered two things. One, Juan and Cesc were still in the house; two, Juan and Cesc believed they were alone.

It could have been worse, Dan mused as he watched Juan slowly remove his hand from inside Cesc’s jeans like he thought Fernando wouldn’t notice it if he didn’t make any sudden moves. Judging by the look on Fernando’s face he had in fact noticed it, along with the way Juan was sprawled on top of Cesc and the way they were both flushed and breathing heavily.

For several seconds it was very, very silent.

“What sort of secret relationship is this?” Dan asked, when no-one else seemed willing to speak. Or move. “I’ve known you five hours, I’ve walked in on you twice.”

“Relationship?” Fernando asked, looking first at Dan, then at Juan and Cesc. The two on the bed nodded as they and Dan braced themselves for Fernando’s reaction. But Fernando surprised them all. “Right then,” he said, nodding thoughtfully. “Okay.” Then he turned and left the room. They all stared after him until Dan’s grumbling stomach broke the silence. He pulled open a drawer and threw on the first clothing he found, which happened to be an old pair of pyjamas. He pretended not to notice Juan and Cesc hurriedly zipping up their jeans and scrambling off the bed.

“I’m starving,” Dan said. “So I’m going to get something to eat. You’re welcome to join me if you want. Or don’t, if you want. Just don’t have sex on my bed.”

Fernando was in the kitchen when he got downstairs, fully dressed and seated at the table. His damp hair still dripped water down his neck, little rivulets disappearing under the collar of his shirt. He was staring at his own fingers as they traced over the grain of the wood. He looked up as Dan walked in, the furrows on his brow smoothing out as he looked Dan up and down. “Cute,” he said with a smile. Dan looked down at himself, at the cartoon dogs printed on his pyjamas and the ankles poking out of the too-short trousers. Right, that was why he never wore these. Fernando stood and walked over to Dan. “I’m going to go,” he said softly, his eyes serious. “I’ll—” he broke off as something behind Dan caught his eye, and Dan turned to look. Juan and Cesc were standing in the doorway, looking apprehensive. “Hey guys.” Dan didn’t know what they had seen in Fernando’s face or heard in his voice, but whatever it was took the tension out of their shoulders, though Cesc still looked ready to bolt. Dan turned back to Fernando, who was smiling a little but still managing to look grave. “I’ll talk to you later,” he said to Dan, cupping his jaw and kissing him lightly. He ran a finger over his cheek. Then he turned, picked up his jacket from the table, and left, casting a final, unreadable look over his shoulder as the door shut.

“So, you said something about food?” Cesc said. Dan assumed the yelp that followed was due to Juan elbowing him. Deciding the only thing that mattered right now was his stomach, Dan opened the fridge.

“Sure,” he said. “Let’s eat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, I once lived in a tiny house like Dan's that for some reason had a second shower installed in the cupboard under the stairs. In fact, all of Dan's house-related woes are based on my own experiences in various rented houses, though the guy who came through my ceiling while checking for storm damage only put his foot through rather than his whole body. Unfortunately, I never had a red hot handyman landlord to sort it all out for me, or have sex with me in the ridiculous shower.
> 
> Spare a thought for poor Nick, who I keep trying to work into the story but he never seems to fit. Sorry, Nick. Dan still loves you.
> 
> I am on [tumblr](http://flirty-froggy.tumblr.com/) for those of you who are curious about my feelings about Fernando Torres and a frankly embarrassing array of tennis players, amongst other things.
> 
> Next chapter: Dan makes a decision.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter! 30k words and seven months later my 'quick little one-shot' is finished.
> 
> I'm not sure how I feel about the way things have gone in these last couple of chapters. I'm happy with them but also... not. Eh.
> 
> Most of the Spanish and Danish in this chapter comes from the Google mangle and so is probably wrong. Please, please correct me.

Dan had been talking himself out of it for most of the morning. They didn’t do this, didn’t call just to chat. And he would be seeing him tonight anyway. But he wanted to. In a sudden burst of resolution, he hit the call button. Fernando answered within two rings.

“Hey,” he said, with that soft smile in his voice. Something flipped over low in Dan’s chest. God, he was so fucked.

“Hey,” he replied, then realised he had not thought at all about what he was going to say. There was a long pause; Dan could hear voices in the background and something that sounded like machinery. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have called you at work. I didn’t think. I’ve got the afternoon off, I forgot you’d still be there.”

“No, that’s okay, I’ll— hang on.” Fernando’s voice moved away from the phone; Dan could hear him speaking to someone, followed by muffled whooping and laughter. He distinctly heard Fernando swear at someone, then the sound of a door closing, and quiet. “I’m in the site office now, it’s a bit quieter in here. Is everything okay? Are you okay? You’re not calling to cancel tonight, are you?” 

“No, I’m not canceling. I actually have plans for you tonight.”

“Plans, hmm? Can’t wait,” Fernando said, and Dan knew he was doing it on purpose, dropping his voice like that because he knew what it did to Dan. “Just don’t keep me up too late, my flight’s stupidly early in the morning.”

“Flight?”

“Yeah, because I’m— didn’t I tell you? Oh. I thought I had. I’m going home.”

Dan hadn’t thought things like going weak at the knees actually happened, but he found that suddenly his legs couldn’t hold him up. He gripped the edge of the kitchen table and lowered himself into a chair. “Home? To Spain?”

“No, home to Denmark,” Fernando laughed. “Yes, home to Spain.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah, sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I was sure I had. I hope these plans of yours are good, I want a good send-off to remember while I’m away. It’s cold in Madrid at this time of year, I need something to keep me warm at night.”

Dan was barely listening. He couldn’t get past the refrain in his head; he’s leaving, he’s leaving. His heart thudded and his hands shook. “You’re leaving?”

“Leaving? I— _Madre_ , you mean for good? No. God, no, Dan. No. Just for three weeks to see my family.”

“Oh.” Dan slumped forward on the table with relief and not a little embarrassment. His hands were still shaking. “I thought you meant— you talked about leaving. Before.”

“That was just a passing thing, really. It happens sometimes when I’m missing my family. Or the weather.”

“Oh,” Dan said again, laughing now. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to just drop it on you like that.” Fernando was laughing too, but there was tension in his voice that hadn’t been there before. 

“No, it’s fine. I misunderstood.” The background noise suddenly rose in volume and Dan could hear the sound of a brief, hissed argument.

“I know, I know,” Fernando said, sounding muffled. Then he came back at normal volume. “Sorry about that, it was Pepe checking up on me. I promised I wouldn’t be long. What was it you called about?”

“Nothing, really. I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Yeah?” Fernando’s voice was soft again; Dan could hear the smile in it and felt one creeping across his own face.

“Yeah.”

“You said you have the afternoon off?”

“I did.”

“I could probably get the afternoon off too.”

“Really?”

“ _Si_. Want to get these plans of yours going early?”

“Funny you should slip that bit of Spanish in there. You want to know what my plans are?”

“I can’t have phone sex at work, Daniel.”

“Language lessons.”

“What?”

“I have a foolproof way to teach you Danish. And you’re going to teach me Spanish. The bits we need to know, anyway.”

~~

“ _Lamer_ ,” Dan said, and his accent hadn’t improved much since they started, but Fernando couldn’t care less. “ _Cuello_.”

“And what does it mean?”

“Lick,” Dan said, right before he did it again. “Neck.” They were kneeling on Dan’s bed, Fernando’s back pressed against Dan’s chest as he rode him. Dan ran a hand up one of Fernando’s thighs. “ _Caricia_. Caress. _Muslo_. Thigh. And very nice they are too. Your turn.” 

The first one was easy, it was close enough to the English that Fernando could remember it even when Dan was moving slowly inside him and licking along his jaw. “ _Slikke_.” 

“ _Meget godt_. Very good,” Dan breathed. “And this?” He slid a hand into Fernando’s hair, tipped his head back and kissed him.

“ _Kys_ ,” Fernando said when they pulled apart. “ _Mund. Tunge._ Mouth. Tongue.”

“And what’s this?” Dan asked and thrust up hard into him, just once, hitting his prostate. The world fell away for a moment as Fernando’s entire body tingled. 

“ _Increíble_ ,” Fernando gasped. Dan chuckled, then did it again. “ _Hostia_ , Daniel, you are trying to kill me.”

Dan’s hips moved slowly but steadily as they thrust up into Fernando. “What do you call this?” Fernando asked as he reached up and wrapped a hand around the back of Dan’s neck. “What we are doing.”

“In Danish?” Fernando nodded. Dan hesitated a moment. “ _Elske_. This is _elske_.”

“ _Elske_ ,” Fernando repeated, and Dan smiled as he kissed him again.

“ _Besar_ ,” he said, pulling away. “Kiss.” He moved his mouth to Fernando’s shoulder and grazed his teeth over the skin before pressing down. “ _Morder_.” His hips were speeding up, driving deeper. Soon every thrust was hitting Fernando’s prostate. Fernando knew he shouldn’t, but his hands drifted to his own cock anyway. Dan caught him by the wrists.

“Dan,” Fernando complained. “Please. _Venglist_. Please.”

“How will you fuck me if you come now?” 

Fernando groaned and laid his head back against Dan’s shoulder as Dan tensed behind him, his grip on Fernando tightening. Two more thrusts and Dan came with a groan, pushing deep inside Fernando and going still. He mouthed at Fernando’s shoulder and neck, then twisted him round for a kiss, slipping out of him and pulling him down to the bed. They stayed like that until Dan got his breath back, kissing lazily, Fernando’s erection pressing into Dan’s thigh. “What did you do with the condoms,” Fernando asked. Dan frowned.

“Pillow, maybe?”

Fernando groaned. “You really are trying to kill me.” He moved up the bed in search of condoms and lube, which he eventually found between the pillows. When he turned back, Dan was lying on his stomach, his beautiful back displayed for him and his legs invitingly spread. “ _Dios_ , he muttered.

“That one I definitely know,” Dan said. “I hear that a lot.” 

“Hush,” Fernando said, with a gentle slap on Dan’s arse. He opened the lube and smeared some on his fingers.

“I thought you liked hearing me.” He ended with a groan as Fernando pressed two fingers inside him. He was still slick and stretched from earlier.

“I like hearing you moan and beg. Yeah, like that,” he added as he twisted his fingers and Dan let out a heavy breath. He ran his free hand down Dan’s back then placed a kiss on the ink at the base of his spine, a promise for another time. “Turn over.” He withdrew his fingers and reached for the condom, rolling it on as Dan flipped onto his back with a bemused smile.

“You’re over your little fetish?”

“I want you, _cabrón_ , not your tattoos,” Fernando said as he hooked one of Dan’s legs over his arm and pushed slowly into him. He was pliant and languid beneath him, a drowsy smile on his face as he looked up at him. 

“So romantic,” he said, cupping Fernando’s cheek. Fernando moved his hips steadily, feeling the pressure start to build. Dan’s fingers drifted to the corner of Fernando’s mouth. “ _Boca._ ” He grazed his fingers over Fernando’s lips. “ _Labios_ ”.

Fernando nipped at him with his teeth. “ _Fingre. Suge_ ,” he said, and took the fingers into his mouth.

“ _Chupar_ ,” Dan murmured, his eyes fixed on Fernando’s mouth. “Suck.” He flicked his gaze up and met Fernando’s eye, then took his hand away, wrapped it around the back of Fernando’s neck, and pulled him into a kiss. “ _Lengua_ ,” he said when Fernando pulled away. “Tongue.” Fernando kissed his jaw, then hid is face in his neck. 

“Do you know,” he said in Spanish. “Do you know how good you feel? Do you know how much I want you? Do you know I want you all the time? Do you know my sister called me the other day and I talked about you for an hour straight? Do you know it’s getting harder and harder to be away from you? Do you know, do you know?”

“Do I know what?” Dan said breathlessly. Fernando froze. “That was the only bit I understood. Do I know what?”

“Do you know how good you feel?” Fernando said in English, grinding his hips slow and deep so that Dan groaned beneath him. “Do you know how good you smell?” He nuzzled against Dan’s neck. “Do you know how good you taste?” he whispered, slipping his tongue into his mouth. Dan’s hand was in his hair again, the other one gripping his hip tight as he urged him on. Fernando pulled back and looked at him, at his flushed cheeks and wet, parted lips. “ _Bello_ , he said as he brushed Dan’s cheek with the back of his knuckles. He was surprised to see his hand trembling. He was trembling all over. Another word rose up in his mind, irrepressible and irresistible and determined to be spoken, to be shouted out loud. He squashed it down and sped his hips up, driving into Dan, seeking release and clarity and mindless satisfaction. The pressure built and built until he came with a choked gasp and whispered the word softly, terrifyingly, against Dan’s skin.

Dan held him tight as he shook against him, stroking the back of his neck and whispering things he didn’t understand into his hair. Gradually Fernando calmed down; the shaking subsided and his heart rate slowed down. He was still buried deep inside Dan, he still had Dan’s leg wrapped around his waist. He pulled away, slipped the condom off and threw it in the bin, then lay with his head on Dan’s chest, Dan’s fingers carding through his hair.

“You okay?” Dan asked after a couple of minutes. Fernando nodded, then shook his head, then nodded again. Dan laughed quietly.

Fernando could have stayed there like that all night, maybe all year. “I have to go,” he said.

“What?”

“My flight,” Fernando said, scrambling off the bed, not looking at Dan. “I have to get my flight in the morning, I’m sorry, I have to go.” 

Dan said nothing while Fernando located his underwear and jeans and pulled them on, but Fernando could feel him watching him the whole time. “Stay,” he said at last. Fernando shook his head, his eyes fixed on the belt buckle he was fumbling with. “Stay. And if you’re not going to stay, then don’t come back.” Fernando did look at him then, his heart pounding again. Dan scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “Sorry. That came out wrong. I didn’t mean it to sound like an ultimatum.”

“Then what did you mean it to sound like?”

“Look, we’ve been doing this for months now. Months. And we’ve been keeping it casual and the closest we come to a date is when we get a snack in between rounds of sex and you always shower and leave as soon as we’re done, and I’ve been fine about that, I really have. But I just about had a stroke this morning when you said you were going back to Spain and I think I need to stop kidding myself. We need to stop kidding ourselves. This isn’t casual, Fernando, it hasn’t been casual for a long time. Maybe it never was, I don’t know.” He looked down, fiddling with the bedspread, then looked back up expectantly at Fernando. But something was clogging Fernando’s throat and he couldn’t speak. “I’m not saying we need to confess our deepest, darkest secrets or declare our undying love or anything. I’m just saying… stay. Have dinner. Watch crappy Friday night TV with me. Wake up with me in the morning.”

“That sounds good,” Fernando said, finally finding his voice. Dan smiled.

“Yeah?”

Fernando nodded, still frozen in place. “I can’t do the waking up in the morning part. Not this time. I’d love to but I really do have a flight to catch.”

“You know you’re actually closer to the airport here.”

“I need my stuff.”

“So go get it and come back. We’ll have dinner, have sex, and I’ll take you to the airport in the morning.”

“You don’t have a car.”

“I’ll come with you in the taxi and see you off.”

“Like a proper boyfriend?”

“Like a proper boyfriend.”

Fernando turned the word over in his head. It was scary, but it was also good. Really good. He smiled and clambered back onto the bed. “Okay,” he said, pressing his lips to Dan’s. The kiss only lasted a few seconds, but it was sweet and warm and Fernando felt it right down to his toes. He settled down beside Dan and wrapped an arm around him when he rested his head on Fernando’s shoulder.

“Can I ask you something?” Dan said.

“Sure.”

“What’s the deal with you and Juan? And don’t tell me that there is no deal, because something’s going on there.”

“Something’s going on there,” Fernando agreed, guilt pooling in his stomach as it always did whenever he thought about this. He took a deep breath and braced himself for the forthcoming conversation.

“Is it something I need to be worried about?”

“No. _Mierda_ , no nothing like that.”

“So what is it?”

“Juan used to have kind of a thing for me.”

“Understandable,” Dan said with a nod, surprising a laugh out of Fernando.

“Don’t, it was awful.” Fernando sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Okay. What happened. A few years ago Juan told me he was in love with me and, well, I didn’t— I reacted badly.”

“You? Surely not.”

“Shut up,” Fernando said, laughing again. “This isn’t something I’m proud of, okay? He came to England because I suggested it, you know, and I still don’t know if how he felt about me had anything to do with his decision. I hope not. But when he told me, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to act around him, I was really awkward. We became distant — I became distant, I suppose.”

“Maybe it wasn’t your fault as much as you think. More like a difficult situation with no easy answers. You did the best you could.” 

“Well, my best was pretty shit. I hurt him a lot. We worked it out in the end — I started being less of an idiot, and I think it was easier for him to move on when he knew for sure how I felt. Seeing what a dickhead I can be probably helped a lot too. We’re fine now, but it was slow and difficult, and I almost lost one of my best friends.”

“But you didn’t,” Dan said, hugging him. “And for the record, in my experience, seeing what a dickhead you can be doesn’t actually make it any easier to get over you.”

“Lucky me. Not so lucky you.”

“I think I’m okay.” Dan turned his head and kissed Fernando’s temple. “They seem happy. What I saw of them, at least. They looked pretty besotted with each other.”

“Yeah. Now that they’ve been found out they’re not bothering to hide it any more. The last couple of days at work have been interesting. But you’re right, they seem happy. And I’m happy for them.”

“Really?”

“I’m still going to worry about Juan, and I’m still going to question his judgment. Me then Cesc? Total masochist. But Cesc seems like he’s actually serious this time. They’re my friends and they’re making each other happy. I’m not so selfish that I can’t be glad about that.”

“I don’t think you’re selfish.”

“That’s sweet of you to say, but we both know you’re lying.” 

“You’re not selfish, Fernando. You’re just…” Dan thought for a moment. “Self-absorbed?”

“That’s so much better, thanks Daniel.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I think so. Thanks.” 

They shuffled down until they were snuggled on the bed, Fernando’s head pillowed on Dan’s chest and Dan playing with his hair again. Fernando closed his eyes and let the sound of Dan’s heartbeat lull him. “I don’t have any deep, dark secrets you know,” he said after a while.

“Hmmm?”

“It would probably better if I did, wouldn’t it? I’d have some excuse then, if I had some tragic story about having my heart broken or being abandoned by my father or something. But I don’t. I’m just scared of getting hurt.”

“Yeah,” Dan said, pulling him closer. “Me too.”

“I haven’t been hurting you, have I?” 

“No.” Fernando lifted his head, looking for any sign that Dan was just trying to make him feel better. But Dan was smiling down at him, soft and open. “You really haven’t, I promise. I’ve been happy with how things have been, they’ve been great. But it couldn’t carry on like that indefinitely. Something had to change. It’s like Cesc and Juan; sooner or later you have to admit that this is something.” 

“Yeah,” Fernando said, smiling wide. “Yeah, it really is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand I got all sappy at the end. Had to be done.
> 
> The Danish word Dan doesn't translate, elske, means making love. I think. I wanted something with that specific meaning as opposed to having sex or fucking - I don't even know if that distinction exists in Danish. Again, please correct me if this is wrong.


	9. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to write this, but I couldn't shake the idea of them arguing in the supermarket. Though as it turned out, they argued less than I expected.

Dan steered the trolley determinedly into the frozen veg aisle. He may have lost the Finish vs Fairy dishwasher tablet battle, but he was not backing down on this one.

“We need vegetables Fernando.”

“I disagree, but if that’s what you want,” Fernando said, apparently magnanimous in victory.

“We can’t live off frozen pizza forever,” Dan added, a little thrown off by Fernando’s unexpected capitulation. “What’s the difference between garden peas and petit pois?” he asked, looking from one bag of peas to the other, almost identical, bag of peas. “And don’t say that one of them’s French.” There was no answer from Fernando, and when Dan looked up he found he was watching him with an odd look on his face. “What?”

“I was just thinking.”

“About peas?”

“About you.”

“Oh.” Even now, two words from Fernando with that smile of his, and a happy blush was spreading across Dan’s cheeks.

“I’ve been thinking about getting another tattoo,” Fernando said, stepping round the trolley to stand beside Dan. “And I think you should get one too.”

“Okay. What did you have in mind?” 

Fernando took hold of Dan’s left hand and traced a line across the base of Dan’s ring finger, and then did the same to his own. Dan’s heart stuttered and picked up speed. “I think here. I’m not sure what to get though. I think either the date or the co-ordinates. But first we’ll have to pick a date. And a location.” Fernando’s cheek was pressed against Dan’s as they studied their hands as though there was already something to see. Dan let out a breath.

“Fernando? Is this— are you— is this a proposal?”

“ _Si_ ,” Fernando said quietly.

“Here? Now? Next to the frozen peas?”

“Not romantic enough? Would you like me to get down on one knee?” The pressure against Dan’s side vanished, and he turned to find Fernando sinking to the floor.

“Get up, you idiot,” he hissed, attempting to both glare at Fernando and smile apologetically at the shelf-stacker arranging the frozen chips further down the aisle. The laughter bubbling up inside him did not make this task any easier. Fernando still had hold of his hand, his face flushed with laughter, his eyes lit up.

“Daniel Munthe Agger, would you do me the honour—”

“Fernando, I mean it, get up off the floor.” Dan tugged on his hand and Fernando relented and stood up.

“Okay, look, I’m sorry, I know this isn’t the most appropriate time or place.”

“You don’t say.”

“But I am serious. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and just now when you said we can’t live off frozen pizza forever, I thought, I could live off frozen pizza forever with you.”

“Steady on, Shakespeare. You’re sweeping me off my feet here.”

“Hush. You told me once that we didn’t have to declare our undying love, but I think we should. We should always have dinner together and watch crappy Friday night TV together and wake up together. I’m not saying we have to do something extravagant and I’m not saying we have to do it straight away. I’m just saying… stay. With me. For the rest of our lives.”

Something huge had lodged itself in Dan’s chest as Fernando spoke, and now it moved impossibly to his throat. “You’re so corny,” he managed. “It’s unreal how corny you are. I can’t believe I’m going to marry someone this corny.”

“Yeah?” Fernando said, a huge smile creasing his face. “You’re going to marry me?”

“Of course I am. You didn’t think I’d say no did you?”

Fernando shrugged. “I wonder on a daily basis how you put up with me. I wasn’t sure you’d want to do it for the rest of your life.”

“You are a moody nightmare,” Dan agreed, slipping his hands around Fernando’s waist and pulling him close, no longer caring about the shelf-stacker who was watching them out of the corner of his eye. “But it does have its compensations.”

“God, everything’s about sex with you,” Fernando said, his eyes sparkling. His lips brushed Dan’s.

“Whose fault is that?” Dan murmured, and sank into the kiss. They ignored the stuttered protests of the shelf-stacker.

“Sirs? Excuse me? Sirs, I really don’t think— can you just— this isn’t appropriate supermarket behaviour. Sirs, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. No, don’t— Security!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!


End file.
